The Trouble With a Diary
by HeyLookTheSnitch
Summary: After a series of some unfortunate events, James finds himself in the possession of Lily Evans' diary. Convinced that the diary holds her true feelings for him, James and his friends set out to try to discover what secrets the book hides.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **_Everything here belongs to J.K. Rowling. End of story._

**Summary:** _After a series of some unfortunate events, James finds himself in the possession of Lily Evan's diary. Convinced that the diary holds her true feelings for him, James and his friends set out to try to discover what secrets the book hides. What happens when James' conscious kicks in? _

**A/N:** Hello again, everyone! This is my new story **The Trouble With a Diary**. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it makes you laugh. As always, reviews are always nice!

* * *

Chapter 1: D.H.G.T.S.

James Potter glared at his friend, who was laughing uproariously from a small chair in the Hospital Wing. "She did _what_?" Sirius Black exclaimed, wiping tears of mirth from his dark eyes.

"She threw _this_ at me," James scowled, pulling out from his bag a little black leather-bound book with intricate gold trimming along the edge.

Sirius immediately went into another round of hysterics as Madame Pomfrey passed by. She shot a cold look towards Sirius for disrupting her 'place of serenity and healing', and began pouring another vile smelling potion into a cup that she force fed down her patient's throat.

Remus Lupin sputtered, his nose scrunched up in distaste, as the matron walked away with one last warning glare directed at Sirius. "Even though I have to take this nasty potion after every full moon, I can still never get over how incredibly disgusting it tastes," Remus exclaimed, wincing slightly as he tried to change positions on the uncomfortable hospital bed. His light blue eyes appeared to droop from exhaustion as he fought to stay awake.

Peter Pettigrew, a small, plump boy with watery blue eyes, pulled a chair up beside the bed as well. Together, the four boys called themselves the Marauders: James, the Lily-Stalker; Sirius, the chick magnet; Remus, the werewolf; and Peter, the… No one really knew why Peter had been accepted by the three other boys, because he didn't have the looks or the talent of the others, but they accepted him all the same. "So, what exactly happened again?" he asked, settling himself in for an amusing story.

Sirius began chuckling again until James threw the book at his head. "Now, now, just because Lily threw that at you, doesn't mean you should copy the gesture. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

James rolled his eyes, running a hand threw his messy jet-black hair. "I am doing what I know you would do to me, so shut up, Sirius." Sirius stuck his tongue out at him. James seemed to ponder something for a moment before exclaiming, "We were getting along so well, until she threw this at me. Why do I always screw things up?"

"It's a talent you seem to possess," Remus stated, reaching out for the book so he could look at it.

"Thanks, Moony," James said sarcastically, thinking about the series of extremely unfortunate events that played out last night. The girl he had liked since second year now hated him again, and he had almost gotten his arm ripped off by a rampaging werewolf all in one night.

"Go on, Prongs. Aren't you going to tell us again what happened? The story is a classic Lily-James moment," Sirius pushed, his eyes shining with enjoyment.

James groaned, but knew he couldn't deny the chance to tell his friends exactly what had happened.

_  
The moonlight filtered through a tall window, illuminating the dark hallway of Hogwarts castle. James Potter winced as he watched the full moon drift out from behind a cloud. He could have sworn he heard a faint howling, but hoped it was his imagination; he still had to deal with Lily Evans before making his way down to help with Remus' transformation. Peter's animagus form was useless when it came to helping with a full grown werewolf, and Sirius' dog form would definitely need the help of the stag. _

A clock chimed nine o'clock, and James immediately quickened his pace. He would just have to grit his teach, tell Lily he couldn't help her patrol tonight, and leave as quickly as he could to the Shrieking Shack. He would have to deal with Lily's wrath later. Time was running out; Sirius and Peter were probably already making their way out to the grounds by now, and Madame Pomfrey had already taken Remus out of the castle an hour ago.

Lily Evans appeared in his line of vision as he rounded a corner, her arms crossed as she leaned against the cold stone wall. Her foot was tapping distractedly on the ground and James knew that she was waiting for him. Because they were Head Boy and Girl, the two had nightly patrols around the castle four time a month. It just so happened that tonight's patrol was setfor the exactsame night as the full moon. Excellent, bloody excellent.

His heavy footsteps alerted her of his presence, and she grinned. "James, hey," she greeted, pushing her long red hair over her shoulder.

James' words caught in his throat as he looked into her eyes. Curse those green eyes of hers. "Uh, what's up?" Smooth Potter, smooth.

A strange look crossed her face, almost as if she were trying to control a teasing laughter from escaping. "We only have to do the fourth and fifth corridors tonight, along with the trophy room. The prefects have got everything else," she informed him. When he didn't answer she peered at him curiously. "Is something wrong?" she asked, thinking about his lame 'what's up?'.

A large gulp seemed to constrict his air passage. He looked at her quickly and blurted out. "I can't patrol tonight." Phew, he had said it. Now he could just play it cool and hope she would let him go alive.

Cocking her head to the side, she placed her hands on her hips. "Why not?"

"Look, can you just catch the rule-breaking students without me tonight?"

Her eyes narrowed, which was indeed a bad sign. "You failed to answer my question. Why can't you abide to your Head duties?"

He glanced at his watch nervously. 9:15. "Listen, I can't hang around. Just do it," he said, his nervousness escaping into his words in the form of anger. "Please," he added, aware of his tone of voice.

"You just expect me to let you go have fun while I stay and do all of the work?" Lily asked incredulously, surveying him from her slitted green eyes.

Fun. Yeah, babysitting a werewolf was going to be fun alright. Fun wasn't the right word; adventurous maybe. His eyes glinted as he tried to desperately get away from her. Even though he practically loved this girl, the Marauders had made a promise to always be there for Remus.

"Well, you're Head Girl, aren't you? Like you said, it's your duty."

A low growl escaped her throat. "No, it's OUR duty. I'm starting to wonder again what Dumbledore was on when he appointed you Head Boy."

"It's one bloody duty I'm trying to blow off, Lily!"

"Yeah, but that one will lead to many more later on. I thought you had finally grown up, Potter, but I guess I was wrong. You're nothing more than the same immature, arrogant prat that you were last year." Lily's voice rose as she spoke each word, glaring at him mercilessly.

"And you're nothing more than a suck up who's wasting my time." His words left his mouth before he could stop them. Oh, Merlin, he was in for it now. "No, I mean, I didn't mean that…"

Lily's hands were shaking in rage, her hair seemed to be cackling with electricity. "Next time I won't bother your time then."

James threw his hands up in the air angrily. "Fine, Lily. Just go do your duties and I'll be on my way."

"You are so—"

"—I have better things to do than sit here and let you throw insults at me. Goodnight, Evans," he said harshly, resorting to using her last name again.

He turned around swiftly in order to walk away until something hit him in the back of the head with just enough force to make him stumble on his feet. He whipped around and saw Lily staring at him, eyes burning with rage. "I hate you James Potter." He wasn't put out with this statement, as she had said it millions of times before, but it hurt a little more this time. They were just reaching the level of friendship…why did she have to be so bloody emotional?

As she stalked away, James bent down and picked up the item in question that Lily had thrown at him. A small book lay at his feet. He curiously picked it up and flipped through the pages which appeared to all be blank. Stuffing it in his pocket, he marched along the corridors and out into the grounds.

James sat and fixed a glare at his three friends, who were all laughing now, Remus clutching his ribs painfully. "It's not funny!" he replied.

"You have to admit," Peter began in between chuckles, "that it is just a little bit funny."

"I'm glad you all find pleasure in my pain," James muttered, snatching the book back from Remus.

"Come on, mate. These fights happen all the time between you two," Remus stated, attempting to hide his grin.

"And each time they just get funnier and stupider," Sirius added. "We should document them."

"You know stupider isn't even a word," stated James.

Sirius scratched his head, shrugging his shoulders. "Well, Padfoot isn't a word either, but we use it all the time."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Padfoot is a nickname, Sirius."

"So that means then, if someone was named stupider, then it would be a word," Sirius shot back, sticking his tongue out at everybody.

Peter laughed. "He has a point there."

"Hello? Can we get back to the problem at hand here?" James asked, pointing towards himself.

"A problem? I don't see any problem besides a seventeen year old boy clutching a diary."

"It can't be a diary, Sirius. It's blank," James pointed out.

"Well, mister smarty-pants, maybe if you wrote out all of your feelings into it then it could become a diary," Sirius remarked.

Before James could retort, Madame Pomfrey hustled over to the group of boys. "Time's up. Everybody out. Mister Lupin needs his rest."

From behind her, James, Sirius, and Peter all rolled their eyes as they gathered their stuff together. "We'll come visit you tomorrow," James called out to Remus as the strict matron ushered them out with her hands.

"Yeah, maybe we'll have more Lily updates—OW!"

Remus chuckled as James hit Sirius upside the head. He tiredly waved goodbye to his friends and grimaced as Madame Pomfrey shoved another potion under his nose.

* * *

"Can I have the diary, Prongs?" asked Peter from his bed in the corner of the boys' dormitory.

"For the last time it's not a diary!"

"Why would you want it, Wormtail?" Sirius asked humorously. He watched as Peter blushed a tiny bit as he shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

"No one is getting it. Lily gave it to me and I intend on keeping it."

Sirius let out a bark of laughter as he flipped through the pages of his Quidditch magazine. "Mate, she chucked it at your head."

James waved off Sirius' words. "Same difference."

There was silence for a moment before Sirius broke it, as usual. "I still think we should make the book become our Marauder seventh year documentations," Sirius said pointedly. "We could pass it down to our children when we get older. We can call it…Documentations of a Handsome Gryffindor and His Three Sidekicks."

James wrinkled his nose as he looked at Sirius amusedly. "What kind of title is that for anything? The title would be longer than the book."

"I dunno," said Peter, picking out a red jellybean from his pack of Bertie Botts, "I kind of like being named as the 'Handsome Gryffindor'."

At the same time, all three of them began laughing until a look of disgust crossed Peter's face. Sirius and James looked at their friend in confusion as Peter spat something onto the ground, his eyes red and watering. "Ugh! Red pepper flavor. I hate peppers!"

"See? Now this is the kind of stuff that would be written down in our Documentations of a Handsome Gryffindor and His Three Sidekicks," Sirius said, slapping Peter on the back as he continued to splutter at the taste of his red jellybean.

"That's such a mouthful though. I mean, think about how long it would take us to say the name every time we talked about it," James said, playing along with Sirius' little dream of having a Marauder book.

"If you say it fast it could only take a few seconds to say," Sirius stated logically. He drew in a deep breath before blurting out, "Documentationsofahandsomegryffindorandhisthreesidekicks."

Peter and James shared a look that was usually saved for the times when Sirius would say or do something that made no sense...now was one of those times. "How about just D.H.G.T.S.?" asked Peter, smelling another jellybean before cautiously plopping it into his mouth.

James nodded. "Yeah, it would save us a lot of trouble, and breath."

Sirius' eyes lit up. "So, does that mean we'll do the documentations in that book then?"

"No."

Sirius crossed his arms with an undignified humph and leaned back against his bed, forming his mouth into a pout. "You're cruel."

"Speaks the dog who pees on my leg," James said, grinning.

"It's not my fault dogs get overly excited, and Padfoot has a small bladder size," Sirius retorted in an attempt to defend himself.

"Your human form doesn't have a big bladder either," Peter added.

"What is this? Pick on Sirius day?"

James lazily lay down on his bed, pulling Lily's book towards him and opening it up. He took a quill and began scribbling away on an empty page. "No, that holiday is tomorrow."

Sirius got off of his bed and leaned over James' shoulder. "What are you doing?"

James grinned. "Writing about the time you relieved yourself on Snape while in your dog form. You know, this keeping a diary business isn't such a bad idea."

"Diaries are for girls," Sirius said, wrinkling his nose.

"So are stuffed teddy bears."

Sirius frowned, trying to hide his stuffed blue bear, Twinkie, from view.

* * *

Well, there's a taste of what the story is going to be like! 

Chapter two should be up shortly!

--HeyLookTheSnitch


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** _Yeah...do I look or sound like J.K. Rowling to you? lol_

**A/N:** _Hey! Thanks for the reviews! Here's chapter two!_

_Happy reading!_

* * *

**Chapter 2: It's Not a Bloody Diary!**

"Prongs, mate, I still don't understand why you're writing in that diary," Sirius stated while lying on his four poster bed up in the Gryffindor seventh year boys' dorm.

James ran a hand through his jet-black hair, making it stand up in all directions. "It's not a bloody diary, Padfoot," James hissed annoyed. "It's a journal…a very manly journal where I discuss…manly stuff. And besides, it was _your_ idea."

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, but I wanted it to become a memoir to our great achievements as the Marauders. All you do is talk about Lily."

James puffed out his chest indignantly. "I do not. For your information I talk about hexing Slytherins…and our Marauder midnight escapades…and—"

James stopped short and watched as his 'manly journal' flew out of his hands and into Sirius' outstretched ones. James stared, wide eyed. "But how—what?"

Sirius waved his wand up in the air triumphantly. "Nonverbal spells, Prongs."

James growled under his breath and immediately shot out of bed, diving onto Sirius who moved quickly out of the way. "Padfoot, give it here!"

Sirius danced out of James' way, while holding the small, leather-bound book out of James' reach. "_Today, Lily actually sat beside me during breakfast…Okay, so maybe it was the only spot available, but she still sat there and I could smell her melon flavored shampoo," _Sirius read, jumping backwards as James made another futile attempt at seizing the book.

Sirius flipped a couple of pages, still holding the book high above his head as he began reading James' innermost thoughts again. "_I, James Potter, am in love with Lily Evans. Even though she just went from loathing me to actually being friendly towards me to hating me again, I know it's just a cover up for her true, deep feelings for me…_" Sirius broke off and stared at James whose face was steadily turning redder and redder. If it was out of embarrassment or rage, Sirius wasn't sure, but it didn't help the matter when Sirius began chuckling.

"You've had this for three days and you've already written this much? Oh and look, you've even spelled out her name multiple times. _Lily Potter, Mrs. Lily Potter, Lily Evans-Pot—_humph!" James head collided with Sirius' stomach and the two were sent tumbling to the ground in a jumble of arms and legs, the journal lying forgotten a few feet away as James and Sirius began wrestling on the ground.

Because of the struggle, neither James nor Sirius heard their dormitory door creak open as Remus walked into the room, his arms laden with a variety of study books because of his absence from classes while in the hospital wing.

Remus watched amusedly for a couple minutes, unnoticed, as his two best friends continued to struggle with each other on the floor. "Padfoot, you bloody, nosey—"

Sirius reached into his robes and pulled out his wand, pointing it at James who immediately sprouted long strands of grey ear hair. "What in the world were we doing? We're wizards for Merlin's sake." Sirius exclaimed, as James fingered his new ear hair growth disgustedly. "Now, if I may continue my reading in peace, that would be greatly—"

Sirius started fumbling on his words as his tongue began expanding in his mouth. He looked up and saw James' satisfied grin plastered across his face. James made his way over to his journal, and that's when he noticed Remus. "Hey, Moony! Good to see you alive and walking!" exclaimed James.

"What, may I ask, is going on?" he asked, his light blue eyes sparkling in enjoyment.

James shook his head, picking up his book and holding it tight to his chest in order to protect it from any more prying eyes. "Nothing, Moony."

"Jaemds yaez vritingz fren nis djounezl."

James and Remus both stared down at Sirius, who was attempting to speak with his now three foot long tongue. They shot each other confused looks as the monster tongue lolled around on the floor, growing at an alarming rate.

"Alright, that's getting disgusting now," Remus said, eyeing the fat pink wet thing that was making a trail of drool along the wooden floor. He pulled out his wand and with a flash Sirius' tongue was back to normal. "Jeez, I'm gone for three days and already you two are in a duel."

"I'm starting to question your masculinity, mate," Sirius stated as if nothing had happened, eyeing the diary. "I mean honestly, _Mrs. Lily Evans-Potter_?"

"Shut it, Pads," James said, placing the journal inside of his trunk and locking it. "If the girl of your dreams gave you a journal, you would protect it too."

"There's a difference between protecting it and using it. You are definitely doing the latter. But then again, I wouldn't be sappy enough to label a girl 'the girl of my dreams'."

"That's because you change girls more than you change your underwear," retorted James, readjusting his glasses on his nose.

"I do not wear underwear, thank you very much," Sirius said. The two other boys shot confused, disgusted looks at the friend, who quickly amended his mistake. "Ew, you sickos, I meant to point out that I wear boxers. The kind of undergarments that real _men_ wear."

Remus shook his head in amazement at his two best friends and dropped his heavy library books onto his bed. "Thanks for that information, Sirius. I couldn't have survived a minute longer without knowing what kind of underwear you wear. Anyways, were you fighting about the diary Lily gave you, Prongs?"

Sirius coughed discretely. "You mean the diary Lily _threw_ at him," he corrected.

James sighed exasperatedly. "Merlin, for the last time it's not a bloody diary! And it was your idea in the first place to use it!"

"Yeah! For D.H.G.T.S. Not for a diary," Sirius pointed out, hitting his chest with his hand in an attempt to show his manliness.

Remus looked between the two confusedly. "Did I miss something? D.H.G.T.S.?"

James stood up and stalked over to the door, throwing it open. "Don't ask. Now, I'm going to go find somebody who appreciates me," James exclaimed dramatically.

"Hate to break it to you, but Lily's in the library tutoring that second year again. And, in case you didn't notice, she doesn't appreciate you at the moment," Sirius said easily.

"Who said I was going to go find Lily?" James said coolly, leaning against the doorway.

"Nobody said anything, but you were thinking it," Remus stated, sharing an amused look with Sirius.

James huffed and walked out of the dormitory. A ringing silence followed his departure as the two other boys stared at the door. "He does realize he still has hair sprouting from his ears like a troll, doesn't he?" Sirius said to Remus.

The two friends sat and stared at the door. "Three…two…one," Remus counted down, and right on cue James re-entered the room, his face a light tint of pink.

"I hate you both," he stated as he grabbed his wand off of his bed and muttered the counter-jinx.

"You love us, really," Sirius said, batting his eye lashes. "Make sure to come back later so we can give each other manicures and share our feelings."

Remus and Sirius burst into laughter as James glared at them both, before exiting the room once again, his ears free of hair.

"So," started Remus, "what exactly is D.H.G.T.S.?"

OOO

James descended down the stairs and into the Gryffindor common room which was packed with students of all ages. His angry mutterings about friends who didn't respect personal property ceased immediately as a familiar mane of red hair caught his attention.

Lily seemed to be searching for something, looking under couches, throwing cushions off of the comfy furniture, and even looking under the rug in front of the fire place. The area looked like a high category tornado had torn the place apart.

"Trying to destroy the common room, Evans?" James called out, walking casually up to her despite the fight they had gotten in the other day.

Lily immediately straightened up tensely, and without even turning around, she retorted, "Shove off, Potter."

James crossed his arms as he rested against the arm of the Gryffindor couch. He never quite understood why they called each other by their last names, but it had been that way since their first year, it was practically their own little tradition. It had only stopped for a couple of months since he had gotten onto her good graces. Now, it seemed that he had been wiped out of her good graces handbook again. "Easy, Evans, there's no need to get all feisty."

Lily spun around to face him, her face red with annoyance as she looked upon the bespectacled guy in front of her. "I'm not afraid to throw something else at you," she said, glaring. "If you keep pestering me this chair will most likely collide with your head."

James laughed, which only seemed to anger Lily more. "Threatening the head boy now, are we? Just a few days ago we were getting along pretty nicely," James mocked, fingering his shining badge.

Lily glared daggers at him. "That was before you decided to act like an immature idiot again."

"Look, I just came over here to offer my help."

"Oh, so now you want to help me. Well, I'd rather ask Snape for help at the moment."

James looked at her, disregarding her last comment. "Well, you seem to have lost something. Seeing as I know this castle backwards and forwards, I'm being so kind as to offer you my services."

Lily rolled her eyes, placing her hands on her hips, her green eyes narrowed. "Oh, how kind of you," she spat. "And anyways, what makes you think I've lost something?"

James glanced around the area in which they stood, taking in the over turned furniture and the many books that were strewn around the floor. "I dunno about you, but normal people don't usually try to demolish their common room, especially goody-two-shoes such as yourself."

Lily followed his gaze around the room. "What? Are you talking about this?" she asked, waving a hand around the mess. James raised his eyebrows as if answering with a 'yes'. Lily laughed nervously. "I was just re-decorating, you know? Thought I'd change up the décor."

James raised his eyebrows even higher so that they disappeared into his messy hair. "Listen, just let me help you."

"I don't need any help finding it!"

"Aw, so you admit you're looking for something then?" James asked, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

Lily, on the other hand, was nowhere near being amused, as her eyes seemed to go a shade darker in anger, her lips pursed. "You are so infuriating."

"Come on, Evans," James pushed.

"Don't you have better things to do than harassing me?" She asked, desperately trying to get the raven-haired boy to leave her alone. Honestly, she could do with the help but there was no way she was going to give James Potter the satisfaction of her caving into his demands.

"Nope, I'm all yours."

"Shove off," she repeated.

"Please, Evans."

"No."

"Pleeeease," James drew out the word childishly.

Lily threw her hands up in the air. "If it will make you shut up, then fine!"

James grinned widely. "Great. So what are we looking for?"

Lily shot a harsh glare at him as she let out an agitated groan. She took in a deep breath, as if calming herself, before answering bluntly, "It's a little leather book."

James eyes widened, but he played it cool. Lily obviously had forgotten that it had been that book she had thrown at him. "Oh, that one. The one with the gold trimming around it?"

Lily looked at him suspiciously. "Yeah…that one…"

James shrugged innocently, picking at his nails as if the conversation held no importance to him whatsoever. "Why's it so important?"

He watched as Lily bit her lip, her eyes sweeping the room again as if trying to find it, before her head shot back to look at James. "Why should I tell you? It's none of your business."

A silence filled between them for a moment. _That book was dearly important to Lily, otherwise she wouldn't have been so frantic on getting it back, but it had been empty when I had looked through it._ His curiosity got the better of him; he needed to know what was so special about that book. "Well, Evans, I haven't seen it," he said a little too quickly, walking back up towards his dorm.

He could feel Lily's eyes on him as he left. "Potter!" she finally yelled. "Potter, get back here!"

James ran up the stairs and into his room, finding Sirius, Remus, and now Peter playing exploding snap on the floor. "Well, look who it is, Jamie is back," Sirius exclaimed jokingly, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes.

James whipped out his wand and unlocked his trunk, hastily shifting through it. "Prongs, what are you doing?" Remus asked, ducking as a heavy text book flew across the room and hit the wall behind him.

"That journal is special to Lily," James panted, finally pulling out the leather book and his invisibility cloak. As he spoke he threw the cloak over the book, hiding it from sight and then stuffing it into his pillowcase, "I think she knows I took it. She'll be up here any minute, and I need more time to figure out why it's so important."

"You know," started Remus, "curiosity can kill the stag."

"So can the werewolf," James replied smugly, smirking at Remus. "Now shut up, will you? She'll be up here any moment," James whispered. He quickly sat on the floor next to Peter and pulled some cards towards him, casually, making it look like that's what he'd been doing all along. Sirius, Remus, and Peter shot their friend a strange look right as the dormitory door flew open. Lily Evans marched into the room, her face livid.

"Why, hello there Lily-flower," Sirius said, looking up from the game. "So nice of you to drop in."

Lily stalked over to the group of boys and snatched the cards from James' hand. "Oy!" he exclaimed, "I was just about to win!"

"Potter, where is my diary?" she demanded. If it were possible, James thought steam would have been bellowing out of her ears.

"I already told you. I haven't seen it since you oh so nicely threw it at my face." _Oh, so the book was a diary, Lily's diary…all the more reason to keep it._

Lily seemed about ready to scream as her eyes widened with realization, "Potter! I know you have it! You probably picked it up with your ungrateful hands right after I threw it at you." She was breathing hard now.

Trying to use all of his will power, Sirius attempted to hold in his laugher, but he failed miserably. Tears began running down his cheeks. Lily rounded on him next, "What is so funny, Sirius?" she demanded.

Sirius shook his head, recoiling slightly from the red-head. "Nothing."

She growled angrily and turned back to James. "Now, cough it up, Potter."

James yanked his cards back from her and turned back to the game casually. "You should learn not to chuck things at people. And besides, I don't have it! You can even search through my stuff if you want."

Lily glared at him. "Fine. I will!" She walked over to his trunk, and threw it open, digging through his stuff. The four boys watched as she threw everything out of James' trunk, and then realizing it wasn't there, walked over to his bed and completely stripped off the sheets and duvet cover.

She continued to search every millimeter of the Marauders' dormitory until the only explanation she could come up with was—

"See? I told you it wasn't here."

Lily let out a scream of frustration before marching straight up to James' and stuffing her finger into his chest. "I know you have it, and so help me Merlin, if I find you with it I'll hex you so bad you won't ever be able to read again."

"I'll keep that in mind," James said..

They watched as she marched through the mess she had made and then bent down, picking something up off of the ground. James became nervous as her eyes brightened. When she stood, she held a wooden box in her hands. It was blank except for the words 'Top Secret' written on the top of it.

She grinned in a satisfied sort of way at the paled expressions that now covered the four boys' faces. "Bugger," said Sirius under his breath. "I knew we shouldn't have written 'top secret' on it."

Right as Lily almost had the box fully opened to reveal what was inside, it flew out of her hands. James caught it and all four Marauders sighed visibly.

Lily's eyes flashed dangerously. "Accio box."

James tightened his hold as he felt the smooth wood being pulled out of his fingertips. Lily scowled as James fought her charm by holding onto the box for all he was worth. "Potter, if you're hiding something illegal in here I have a right as Head Girl to know what it is. Accio box!" she bellowed, and as hard as he tried, the box finally sprang from his grasp and into Lily's.

Thinking quickly, Sirius began talking. "Fine, Lily. See what's inside it. It's a great joke, let me tell you." Remus, Peter, and James all stared at Sirius as if he had gone mad. He winked.

"It's a piece of parchment?" Lily asked incredulously, turning it around in her hands to view it at all possible angles.

"No, my dear," stated Sirius. "It's a _blank_ piece of parchment."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Do you really think I'm that stupid to believe you?" She pointed her wand at the paper. Peter let out a quiet yelp as words began spreading along the paper.

Lily looked down curiously and began reading the words that had appeared. "_Mister Moony would like to express to dear Lily that although her brain may be big, no knowledge will reveal our secret_." Lily gasped as Remus tried to hide his smile. "How did it know my—" she cut off as another line appeared underneath the first.

"_Mister Prongs would like to tell Miss Lily that she is indeed the most beautiful witch he has ever seen and hopes to have her for his own."_

Two more lines appeared under that one. Blushing profusely, Lily read the last two sentences. "_Mister Padfoot would like to establish that Mister Prongs is pathetic and doesn't know a thing about the ladies." _Sirius sniggered quietly as James glared at him.

"_In conclusion, Mister Wormtail bids Miss Evans good day and apologizes for Mister Prongs' behavior."_

The words seeped into the page as quickly as they had come, leaving the parchment blank once more. Once she was sure the map wouldn't be talking to her again, Lily searched the boys for answers. "What was that?"

The four boys tried to look innocent. "Nothing, Lily," Remus spoke up, "Just a piece of parchment designed to make anybody who reads it…uh… laugh."

Lily looked closely at Remus, who tried to look honest. "Well, until I get my diary back," she glared at James, "I'll just keep this."

"Evans, come on. I said I don't have your diary," James pleaded, eyeing the parchment, which was really the Marauders most prized possession; the Marauder's Map.

"And I say I don't believe you. Good day, boys." She marched over to the door and swung it open. Before she closed the door behind her, she turned back to James. "You know, this mister Prongs person sounds a lot like somebody who would steal my diary." With one last smirk at the boys, she slammed the door, the map clutched in her small hands.

The four boys sat in a shocked silence for a couple of minutes. After all, they had just lost a brother figure. The map was practically a part of them. "Well," stated Sirius finally, "we're screwed."

"Yep, totally screwed," agreed Peter.

"She knows."

"Yep, she knows." Said Peter, repeating Sirius again.

Remus groaned, throwing down his playing cards. "Well, I guess our nicknames aren't so secret anymore."

James looked around at his friends' stony faces. "Don't worry guys. We'll get it back, but in the mean time…" he rushed over and pulled the invisibility cloak off of Lily's diary. "We always have Lily's diary to keep us company."

Sirius, Remus, and Peter all glared at James. "How can you be thinking about some girl's diary when our precious map-brother is in the clutches of pure evil," Sirius exclaimed.

A small snort escaped Remus' mouth at the thought of Lily being considered 'pure evil.'

James sighed. "Look, mates, I'm sorry. But I have to figure out what this book contains. The sooner I find that out, the sooner we can exchange it for our map. So, are you three going to help me or not?"

The other three boys stared at him like he had gone bonkers, but consented to help him in order to get their most trusted friend back.

* * *

_Well, hoped you liked it! Please, feel free to review! _

_Until next time!_

_--HeyLookTheSnitch_


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** _Yada, yada, yada, none of this is mine._

**A/N**: _Hey everybody! I'm back from holiday! It was a lovely time and I enjoyed it greatly! Sorry for the long wait, but I didn't have access to a computer, but I'm updating now! Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! You guys are the best and I'm so happy you are all enjoying my story!_

_**OOO**_

**Chapter 3: The Insanity of a Stag**

"Remind me again why we're doing this?"

James rolled his eyes in an annoyed fashion, stopping in the narrow tunnel to face Remus, causing the three trailing boys to bump into each other. James held up his lit wand to survey his friends, but before James could answer, Sirius butted in. "We're here to have some good old fun!"

Remus and Peter looked around their surroundings, pulling their cloaks closer to their body to generate heat as the soft pattering of water could be heard splashing onto the tunnel floor; it didn't really help either that it was the middle of November. Remus looked at Sirius as if he had just grown three heads "Uh…yeah…James? Why are we doing this?" Remus repeated.

"To get our Marauder's Map back. And to find out what's in Lily's diary; you did agree to help me, you know."

"So you're telling me that you woke us all up, dragged our butts out of bed, and hauled us over to the one-eyed witch passageway just so you could find out what Lily said about you in a diary that's UPSTAIRS IN OUR WARM DORM?" Remus asked.

James shrugged, smiling sheepishly. "Um, yeah. That about sums it all up."

"You have_ got_ to be kidding me," Remus muttered underneath his breath as the group began walking again.

"Come on now, remember our first ever Marauder rule: A Marauder in need is a friend in need," sang Sirius happily, clapping James on the back.

"Remind me to shred the rules book when we get back," muttered Remus to Peter so the two other boys couldn't hear. Peter grinned.

"Yeah, why can't you guys be as positive as Sirius, eh?" James asked.

"Because we aren't as insane as him," answered Peter simply. Sirius pretended to pout as he glared mockingly at his friend.

"And besides," James continued, crouching down slightly as a piece of rock jutted down from the tunnel ceiling, "I wouldn't have even gotten into this mess if you hadn't needed me that night I had patrol duties with Lily," James said, smiling slightly as he looked back at Remus.

Remus immediately took the defense. "No, we wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't of taken Lily's diary, not to mention we'd have our Marauder's Map with us right now. And, I'm not the one who forced you to become an Animagus and accompany me during my transformations."

"I know, I know, I was only joking," James said. "But still, since the spell to get the invisible ink on Lily's diary to become visible didn't work, then our next best hope is if we buy one of those erasers that reveal hidden messages."

"You keep on saying 'we' as if we're in on this too," Remus stated.

Sirius laughed. "Well, we're here together, aren't we? Bound by the same common goal to get our beloved map back and aid a friend in his pathetic attempt to get closer to Lily's mind and heart."

Remus groaned inwardly as he tried to bring up a new topic to explain why this trip was completely pointless and not to mention idiotic. "Wait a second, how are you even planning on getting into Zonkos? It's one o'clock in the morning."

James silently reached into his bag and held up his silvery cloak while Sirius pulled out his knife that could unlock any lock. "Oh, so now you're trying to get us arrested. This just keeps on getting better and better," Remus said sarcastically, rubbing his tired eyes.

"Right you are, Moony! The four of us, once again looking danger right in the face—OW!" Sirius rubbed the top of his forehead frantically after it rather rudely slammed into a protruding rock. "Bloody tunnel…" he muttered darkly. "I would have seen that coming if we had the map."

The four friends continued walking along the damp tunnel for twenty minutes, the silence only being punctured by the sound of their footsteps echoing off of the walls and the voice of Sirius singing "99 bottles of Butterbeer on the wall".

James thoughts about what he may find in the diary were suddenly interrupted by Sirius saying rather dramatically, "Ahoy, there maties. Light up ahead."

James snorted. "Are you sure that bump on the head back there didn't cost you your sanity?"

Remus snorted. "Sanity. What sanity? He's always been mental."

"No, you idiots! Look, Honeydukes cellar approaching at twelve o'clock," Sirius stated pointing straight ahead.

"I thought it was one thirty?" Peter stated, checking his watch.

Sure enough, the Marauders soon stood underneath the trap door that would lead them up into Honeydukes' cellar. "Okay," James said, once the four of them had gathered into a group, "I'll go up first with the cloak to make sure the coast is clear, then you three can follow."

"Yes sir!" Sirius said enthusiastically, purposefully smacking Remus on the back of the head as he saluted James. With a swish of his cloak, James had disappeared from view. Sirius, Remus, and Peter waited below and watched as the trap door opened as if by an invisible force, which in reality is exactly what happened. There was silence for a few moments before James' head reemerged out of the trap door, causing the three others to jump in surprise. "Alright, let's do this."

Sirius followed up first, led by Remus, and lastly Peter until finally the four Marauders had a clear view of the stocked up boxes of sweets.

As they made there way through the inventory, Sirius stealthily reached his hand into one of the boxes labeled 'liquorish wands', humming distractedly. "Sirius!" Sirius' hand immediately jumped out of the box. "You weren't actually considering _stealing_ that, were you?" Remus asked, staring his friend down.

Sirius chuckled casually. "Psh, no, give me a little credit. I was going to leave money on the counter."

Five minutes later they found themselves standing outside of Zonkos, where a bright neon light was shining in the window that read '_Now open 24 hours_'. "Now, that's what you call ironic," stated Sirius.

James turned towards the group and smiled. "See? I told you it would all work out."

"You never told us anything, otherwise I wouldn't have come," Remus grumbled, annoyingly leading the way into the shop, where they were greeted by an equally grumpy old man with balding grey hair, who was still working his shift.

Much to Remus' pleasure, after an hour and fifteen minutes of walking where he had to endure Sirius' singing, large roots that liked to trip you up, and demon-possessed cats out to get rule-breaking students, the Marauders were, once again, back inside the safety and warmth of their dormitory.

"I can not believe I am friends with you two," Remus stated tiredly, as he crawled back into his bed; Peter had collapsed onto his sheets as soon as they had entered the room.

"Aw, come on, Moony! You're going to miss the best part," implored Sirius.

"If you're talking about Prongs breaking into the privacy of the head girl just to see what she said about him when she probably didn't mention anything about him at all, then I think I'll pass." And with that Remus shut the hangings around his bed and fell asleep.

"Well, I guess it's just you and me, buddy old pal."

"It's good to know you're still with me even though I got our map taken away," James said sincerely, as he pulled out Lily's little black book.

Sirius shrugged. "Well, you didn't ditch me the time I lent it to my ex-girlfriend Katrina in our fifth year."

James' eyes widened. "You _what_?"

"Oh, right, you didn't get mad because I never mentioned it to you guys," he said, smiling innocently. "My bad."

James shook his head in a disappointed manner as he flipped to a random page in the book and held the revealing eraser over a page. He was about to start rubbing away, when his hand suddenly stopped moving, hovering a centimeter over the paper. His conscience just had to kick in. _Why did it always find the worst times to jump into action?_ His stomach started bubbling with guilt. He glanced at Sirius. "You don't think this is…uh…wrong?"

"You mean attempting to break into Lily's diary that she forbade you to read and diving into her most personal innermost thoughts?"

"Thanks, Pads, you're not helping."

"Come on, mate. You're a Marauder. A Marauder never backs down from anything!"

James nodded. "Yeah," he said, "yeah, you're right," he continued, his confidence building. "If Lily really didn't want me to read it, then she wouldn't have thrown it at me, knowing full well I would have attempted to read it."

"Exactly," Sirius pushed, egging James on. "And what she doesn't know won't hurt her. Not to mention that the diary in question belongs to the girl who took our map!"

It seemed as if that was all the convincing James needed, as he allowed his new eraser to make contact with a random page of Lily's diary and began erasing away. Words written in a very tidy form of cursive immediately appeared, causing James' heart to beat faster and faster. After the page was entirely erased, James dropped the eraser onto his bed—surprised that it had worked at all—and brushed off the eraser shavings, letting his eyes fall onto the secret thoughts that were Lily.

"Read it out loud," Sirius said excitedly, peering over James' shoulder.

James cleared his throat. "Alright, here it goes… _I HATE bloody arrogant James Potter—_Aha! I knew my name would be mentioned!"

Sirius smirked. "Yeah, too bad she also mentioned the words 'hate', 'bloody', and 'arrogant' before your name."

James pointed a rude hand gesture at Sirius before his attention turned back to the little book in his hands. "_Maybe I should back track to earlier this morning. First of all, I should mention that today's date is April 1st. April Fool's Day is always rather fun, but throw in the Marauders and you have a total catastrophe. I'll just get straight to the point; the idiotic boys turned my hair purple and somehow got a hold of all of my knickers, but not only mine, my roommates as well. Now, you may be thinking (or maybe not since books can't think…or maybe they can…wait. What am I thinking? Books aren't real!) that this doesn't sound so bad, oh, but trust me, it gets much worse than having my underwear being in the possession of James bloody Potter and his cronies. To add insult to injury, my friends and I found all of our knickers hanging around the school on our way to breakfast. So, that is why I'm concluding this entry with how much I despise those four boys, especially Potter since he was the one that most likely came up with this perverted scheme. He's such an ignorant, annoying, stupid—_Okay! I think it's time to move on to another page." James hastily turned the page not wanting to continue reading the long list of rude names Lily had called him.

"If I do remember correctly, that whole idea was my idea," Sirius said while he began laughing at the memory.

James scowled at him. "Remind me never to listen to your prank ideas ever again. Because of that harmless joke, Lily refused to go out with me to Hogsmeade that next weekend."

Sirius shrugged nonchalantly. "Mate, she would have turned you down anyway."

"Thanks for the boost of confidence."

The two friends sat in silence for a minute, both thinking about something different. In James' case, he was thinking about how Lily had still managed to look hot with purple hair that April Fool's Day in their fourth year. Sirius on the other hand was thinking about how many pancakes he'd be able to eat tomorrow morning for breakfast. Finally, Sirius broke their train of thoughts. "Well then, let's dive back into this adventure."

James' attention immediately jumped back to the book. "Right. Let's just start from the beginning then," he stated as he turned to the first page of the diary. Sirius nodded his head happily in consent and James' began reading.

"'_I don't really know why I let my mum convince me into writing in this diary. I'm normally not the type of girl to let her emotions and feelings fall onto paper, but I guess mum is right. Ever since dad passed away_'—" James' stomach dropped as a memory came flooding back to his own mind from last year.

OOO

"_Check mate," Sirius exclaimed happily, as his knight completely took out James' king. _

"_Bugger. How about two out of three?"_

"_No way, mate. I beat you. Now you'll have to pay the price for having terrible chess skills," Sirius said easily, lazily rocking back in his chair in the Gryffindor common room._

"_There in no way in hell you are getting me to propose to McGonagall…in front of the whole bloody—"_

"_Excuse me, James, Dumbledore asked me to give you this."_

_James and Sirius turned to stare at the scrawny second year who was addressing them. In his hand, the boy held a small piece of folded up paper._

"_Uh…thanks," James said, taking the note from the young boy, who scampered off to rejoin his friends. He opened it curiously, confused as to why the Headmaster was calling for him._

"_What did you do this time?" Sirius asked amusedly, trying to read the letter over James' shoulder._

"_Nothing—" James broke off as his eyes traveled further and further down the note. With each word his face got visibly paler. Without telling Sirius what was going on, James shot up from his chair and sprinted out of the portrait hole. His mind was in such a shocked state that he didn't even recall bumping into Lily Evans, causing her books to fall out of her hands._

"_What happened to them?" James demanded as soon as he entered Dumbledore's office. His face was red with built up emotions._

_The wizened professor lowered his glasses and stared at James. He sighed heavily and the normal twinkle in his eyes had been distinguished. "James, your parents have been attacked by Voldemort while on a mission for the ministry's Auror department. As of now, they are still alive and have been transported to St. Mungo's."_

'As of now, they are still alive'?_ But that almost seemed as if they weren't expected to live. James' ears began to ring violently as his heart seemed to beat wildly. "I'm leaving," James said with a strong tone of authority._

_Professor Dumbledore nodded understandingly, and wordlessly walked over to the fireplace in his office and handed James some floo powder. "They're located in the intensive care unit. Take your time, James."_

_James nodded distractedly and within seconds James was whirling in the midst of green flames on his way to see his parents for what could possibly be the last time._

OOO

"What? Why did you stop reading?" Sirius asked confusedly, staring at James whose eyes had become oddly unfocused as he had been thinking about that dreadful day that his parents had almost been killed. If it hadn't been for the well-trained Healers, his mum and dad wouldn't be alive now.

James firmly closed the book and placed it and the eraser into his bed side table drawer. "Um…I'm just tired, that's all. We can read the rest in the morning with Remus and Peter."

Sirius got up and headed for his own bed without responding to James. Something was bothering him, Sirius could tell, but he decided not to push the matter and fell asleep.

OOO

"What do you mean you're not going to read anymore?" Sirius asked, as the four friends sat around the room the next morning, now fully awake. "You have the chance to find out everything you ever wanted to know about her, and you're blowing it."

"No, Sirius, I blew it when I took the diary," James said, rubbing a hand distractedly through his hair.

"No, she blew it when she threw the bloody book at you," Sirius shot back.

"She didn't blow anything, I blew everything."

"Who's blowing what, where?" Peter asked confusedly, glancing at the others.

"Prongs is right, Padfoot. Lily was writing about her father dying, I mean think about all of the other things in there that she doesn't want anyone knowing."

"Do I need to mention, again, that she HAS OUR BLOODY MAP?" Sirius said, clearly trying to persuade James into reading the diary further.

"Padfoot!" James exclaimed. "I almost lost my family, remember?" Sirius immediately grew quiet, his eyes shifting to the floor. "I know how it feels and I don't think it's right for us to read that kind of thing. I'm not reading it, and that's final!" His voice held such a tone of certainty that no one pushed him further, leaving a ringing silence in the wake of the announcement.

"You're right, Prongs. I'm sorry," Sirius admitted finally.

James grumbled under his breath, picking up the diary and holding it in his hands. "What do I do now?"

"I think you should give it back, so we can get our map back. Then we'll all be happy," Remus suggested.

"Well, yeah, but I kind of like being able to see out of my eyes, thank you very much.," James said haughtily, referring to the threat Lily had thrown at him earlier. "We need to come up with a safer way for her diary to get back into her possession and our map into ours."

That's when Peter's squeaky voice spoke up from the far side of the room. "Why don't you just tell her the truth?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Wormtail. She'd bite Prongs' face off," Sirius stated.

James, however, was staring off into space, pushing his glasses up his nose as they began sliding to the edge of it. "Just tell the—Pete, you're a genius!"

Peter shrugged, abashed at the compliment, but he smiled nonetheless. "Glad I could help."

"It's worth a try," Remus said, shrugging. "Just don't get your hopes up too high, Prongs."

"No. I could walk up to her—"

"—yeah, you walk," butted in Sirius, clearly thinking James was coming up with a better idea then the telling the truth.

"I'll give her the diary—"

"—yeah, you give!"

"I'll tell her that I only read a little and then stopped—"

"—yeah! You—_what_?"

"And then I'll get the Marauder's Map back, and maybe only escape with a few bumps and bruises."

"Have you all lost your minds?" Sirius asked, looking around at them all. "I like having a best friend, and I'm pretty sure I won't have one anymore when Prongs admits to Lily that he stole her diary, went to Hogsmeade after hours, bought an eraser that would reveal her invisible ink, and then learned that her father died. This is Lily Evans we're talking about! The girl who ruins our pranks, the girl who made James go bald in our second year, the girl who—."

"—We know who she is, thanks Padfoot. I have a plan and I think it'll work. All I need is a bit of _luck_," James said hopefully, a determined glint in his deep hazel eyes.

Sirius slumped his shoulders in defeat, knowing James' mind was made up. "Whatever, mate. It's your funeral."

_**OOO**_

_Well, I hoped that amused some of you. The next chapter should be coming along shortly! Thanks for reading and feel free to review:) _

_--HeyLookTheSnitch_

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** _None of this is mine...I swear!_

**A/N:** _Thank you for all of the reviews! They motivate me so much! Thanks to Lils, HaloAngel, E Patronum, Totally Raven, kluvhp, Hikari Annie, lady jennevere, and Sam's Firefly. You guys are amazing!_

_So, as my new school year is about to start, it may take longer for me to update, but I'll continue to try to update as much as possible. I'm actually only expecting this story to be a few chapters longer. Well, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Obviously, my description of the effects of the Felix Felicis won't be nearly as good as J.K. Rowling's, but I did my best. And I'm so glad you all like the Remus' character; I've had fun writing him._

_Well, here's chapter 4! Enjoy!_

_**OOO**_

**Chapter 4: Just His Luck**

James looked up at the clock as their potions teacher, Professor Slughorn, continued making his usual rounds around the classroom, examining each student's potion. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the potions master lean over Lily's potion. The silver glow of the liquid reflected off of Slughorn's fat, bald head. The teacher grinned fondly at Lily, popping a crystallized pineapple into his mouth, rubbing his bulging stomach.

"Look here, Class, Miss Evans has perfectly concocted the Burning Solution. Note the clear, silver color of her potion. Very well done, Miss Evans." James could see Lily's cheeks burning proudly. "Twenty points to Gryffindor. Now, Mister Black, what do you have to show to me?"

James glanced at Sirius and the two tried hard not to burst out laughing. Their professor walked his way over to their table and peered cautiously over Sirius' potion; less than a second later, Slughorn pulled his head back, a sick look on his face. "Uh, I'm sure you did your best, Mister Black."

Sirius nodded, trying to keep a straight face. Truth be told, Sirius and James had spent the whole lesson revising their plan that would take place after this period. At the last minute, Sirius and James had both threw random ingredients, that conveniently were close by, into their separate cauldrons, including Remus' quill by mistake. The smell emitting from the two boys' cauldrons was a mixture of burning rubber and extremely rotten eggs.

"I'm not completely sure throwing in Moony's quill was such a good idea," James stated, looking into his friend's potion, which was a thick, snot-green color.

"I concur," said Remus who was gathering his stuff and packing up his school bag, "that was my last one! All of my other one's have been used as chew toys."

Sirius grinned. "Well, to a dog they taste pretty good."

Remus shook his head in an amused way as the bell rang, signaling the end of class. "Remember that your essay on the Draught of Dreamless Sleeps is due next lesson. Miss Evans, excellent job today. Slug meeting tomorrow night," Professor Slughorn reminded his class as they all scuttled out of the hot room. James could see Lily cringe as she forced a polite smile.

"Okay," James said, looking around the classroom to make sure everyone was out, "Let's do this."

Remus nodded, swinging his bag over his shoulder. "You and Sirius stall him; I'll go get Peter and be back here as quick as possible."

"Good luck mate," Sirius said as he clasped Remus on the shoulder, who immediately left Slughorn's room.

"Do you two boys need anything?"

James and Sirius grinned to each other evilly, before turning around and facing their Professor. "Well, actually, Sir," Sirius began, walking up closer to the desk. "I just wanted to apologize for my lack of potions skill."

Nodding seriously, James added, "He's quite pathetic at it actually." He quickly glanced at the private storage cupboard behind Slughorn's desk and smiled when a small vial of pure gold caught his eye. _So far so good._

Slughorn clapped his hands together jovially, throwing an arm around Sirius' neck. "No need to worry, son. I'm sure you do try your best," he exclaimed with large hand gestures.

_Son?_ James mouthed. Sirius pulled a revolted looking face, which Professor Slughorn caught, apparently thinking Sirius was on the verge of tears. "Now, now, Mister Black, don't fret. I'll let you redo the assignment. Here, have a crystallized pineapple," he urged kindly, passing Sirius a small silver ton full to the top with little candies.

"Thank you, Sir, so much," Sirius sniffed, wiping away an imaginary tear. "You are such a _great_ teacher."

Slughorn looked abashed as he waved the compliment off as if it were no big deal. "Yes, Professor, we only hope to grow up and achieve half of what you have," James added. Right at that moment he saw Remus peer his head around the door of the classroom. James smiled.

"Oh, thank you, boys. You know I am rather well connected. Why, just the other day I—_is that a_ _rat_?" Slughorn exclaimed as a plump, large rat scuttled across the floor, making obnoxious squeaking noises. James caught Sirius' attention and both boys smiled knowingly.

The rat ran under Slughorn's desk, who was attempting to catch it, and up into the storage cabinet. "Oh, dear, I can't have a rat contaminating my supplies. Uh, boys would you mind and try to help me catch this creature."

"Sure thing," Sirius said, grinning mischievously. Poking its head out from the open cabinet door, the rat quickly emerged fully and ran back towards the classroom door, pushing something with it. With its nose, the rat was pushing a small glass vile of gold liquid. James made an exaggerated move at an attempt to try to catch the rat, but purposefully fell across Slughorn's desk, sending papers everywhere in order to add to the chaos. Sirius waved his arms dramatically, knocking their teachers wand from his hand right as Slughorn was about to hex the small animal.

With a whip of its tail, the rat and the vile disappeared around the corner of the classroom door. "What a bother," stated Slughorn, readjusting the papers on his desk. "That was my last stock of Felix Felicis."

"Pity," James and Sirius said in unison, trying hard to suppress their grins.

Slughorn rested his hands on his overly large stomach, sighing. "Well, I just hope that the rat has an _extraordinary_ day," he said jovially, taking a seat behind his desk. "Now, Mister Black I believe we need to arrange a time for you to redo your potion. Oh, and Mister Potter it would do you good to redo yours as well."

"Uh…we'll get back to you on that," James stated distractedly, heading towards the door. "Thank you for your hospitality."

Sirius inclined his head slightly as he backed out of the classroom. "Yes, good day, sir."

With one final nod to their slightly confused Professor, James and Sirius rounded the corner and grinned when they saw Remus and Peter casually leaning against the wall. Peter tossed a glass vile to James, who caught it victoriously, grinning. "You were excellent, Wormtail," he commented, fingering the vile delicately; Peter grinned at the compliment.

"So, what now? Considering the amount of time that has passed, Lily's going to be hard to catch up with," Remus stated.

"Now," James said, the gold of the potion inside of the flask reflected in his eyes, "I get lucky."

Pulling back his sleeves, James uncorked the bottle and surveyed the liquid within. "I think only one or two gulps should be enough," informed Remus. "That should give you a good hour or two."

"Yeah," Sirius stated excitedly, "we can save the rest for something else…" he trailed off, a mad glint forming in his eyes.

"Well," he raised the vile to his lips. "Here it goes!"

"Wait!" Sirius exclaimed, leaping forward and grabbing James' arm, causing three quarters of the precious liquid to spill onto the stone floor. James glared slightly at Sirius, who looked down at the spilt potion sheepishly. "Oops...I only wanted to say goodbye."

The three other boys looked at Sirius, a puzzled expression written across their faces. "Goodbye…You wasted more than half of Felix Felicis to say goodbye?" Remus repeated slowly, making sure he had completely understood his friend.

"Why? Where's he going?" Peter asked.

"Well, as we all know, Lily may rip Prongs to shreds," Sirius began, putting an arm around James, "I just wanted to say, I love you man!" He grabbed James, who smiled slightly, into a rough hug, clapping him hard across the back.

"I'll be fine with Felix's help...or with what's left of it" James reassured as Remus rolled his eyes in the background, "but if for some reason it doesn't work—"

"—Don't say that! It will work. I will not lose my best mate!"

Remus rolled his eyes again. Honestly, his two best friends could be a bit overdramatic occasionally, but he smiled nonetheless.

"But just incase," James continued, playing along, "I want you, Padfoot, to make sure the Marauders continue on without me."

Sirius put his hand to his eye, wiping away an imaginary tear. "You can count on me!"

"And what are Peter and I? Your sidekicks?" Remus asked sarcastically.

"Yeah," Peter added indignantly.

"No, the Marauders are made up of the four of us, but we all know Prongs and I are the ones that keep our pranks going," Sirius said, grinning.

"Yeah, but I'm yours and Prongs' brain," Remus retorted.

"Hey, I resent that," James and Sirius said in unison, glaring at Remus.

"Uh, you do know that you're wasting time here, Prongs," Peter spoke up, glancing at his watch.

Remus eyed the potion, sizing up its contents. "Well, judging by the fact the three quarters of the potion is useless--" he broke off to stare pointedly at Sirius, "then I would say you only have an hour, at the most."

James smiled, raising the potion to his lips. "Right, cheers mates." He gulped down the remaining amount of gold liquid and replaced the stopper into the vile. A grin floated across his lips, his mind becoming suddenly free of clutter so he could think straight. He looked around at his friends, who were all watching him interestedly. "Right," James stated, his eyes brightening from behind his round glasses, "I'm going to go to the boys' bathrooms."

"What?" All three boys asked incredulously, regarding their friend with a worried look. "But you're supposed to go find Lily Evans. A girl this high, red hair, green eyes, large temper…"

James shrugged his shoulders easily, hitching his bag onto his shoulder. He knew what he must do. "Yeah, I know, but making a stop at the loo seems like the right thing to do."

Sirius, Remus, and Peter exchanged nervous glances. "You're sure that you got the right potion, Wormtail?" Sirius asked, eyeing James.

Nodding frantically, Peter said, "I'm positive. It was gold, it was tiny, it was—" Their discussion was cut off as James said, "Well, I'll see you back at the common room later tonight then."

Receiving a tiny nudge from the potion, James directed his footsteps up towards the fourth floor corridor where the boys' lavatory was located, leaving his slightly confused friends behind. As he walked, he felt lighter than usual like something, or someone, was guiding him with not a care in the world.

Quite suddenly, realizing just how lovely it would be to pass by Professor Slughorn's office, James ducked behind a tapestry concealing a hidden shortcut. With absolutely no effort at all, James snuck out from the passageway and rounded a corner, just missing running head-on into the Potions' master.

"Oho, James, try not to jump out like that; gave me quite the fright," the aging man exclaimed, clasping a hand over his heart.

James beamed widely, Felix telling him this is where he was supposed to be and would, in time, catch up with Lily. "Sorry, sir, it's just that I'm in a bit of a hurry," he explained, knowing that the best way to handle with this situation was to tell the truth. He sure hoped the potion knew what it was doing.

Slughorn observed his student suspiciously. An alarming idea popped into James' head that possibly Slughorn could detect the use of the lucky potion, but a moment later that option seemed completely absurd; nothing could get in his way tonight. "Shouldn't you be at dinner? I heard the ghosts were planning to put on a wonderful performance this evening."

Whatever the ghosts were doing really didn't interest James; Felix had other plans for him that didn't involve watching transparent figures popping up through very solid tables, scaring the arses off of the first years. "Actually, sir, you see I took something that's dearly important to another student and I really need to apologize to her," James said slowly, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he really knew what he was saying.

A knowing smile crossed his professor's jolly features as he clapped James around the back as if he were about to indulge in a warm father-son conversation. "Aw, girl troubles. You know, James, the easiest way to a girl's heart is a nice, thoughtful letter. Back in the day, I was quite the lady's man—" With the help of Felix, James suppressed his urge to laugh in disbelief—"and in my fifth year I had messed up on a date—spilled a tankard of Butterbeer on the poor girl—and the first thing I did was right her note…" Slughorn continued rambling, but the only word that stuck out to him was _note_. It was at this point that the potion nudged at this brain, telling him what needed to be done, almost as if Felix Felicis had a mind of its own.

"Hm, what a great idea, sir," James complimented, pretending he had been paying full attention to his professor the entire time. "So good in fact, that I'm keen on giving it a try."

Slughorn grinned satisfactorily. "Well, I am always happy to help a needy student. Here you are—" With a swish of his slender wand, a spare piece of parchment conjured out of thin air. Out of his robe pocket, he pulled out a very handsome feather quill and handed both the writing utensil and paper to James. "For the finishing touch, a dash of rose-aura." A strong, but beautiful smell of freshly picked red roses emitted from the paper; already James knew it was brilliant.

"Thank you so much, Professor. It's perfect. Do you mind?" James asked, pointing off in the direction of Slughorn's office.

"Not at all, my dear boy. Just make sure to leave that quill upon my desk when you've finished. I'm rather attached to it," Slughorn replied. And with a last hearty pat on the shoulder, the Potions teacher ambled off down the hall muttering about young love and influential teachers.

Smiling broadly to himself, and profusely thanking Felix, James entered Slughorn's office and sat behind his desk. He unrolled the piece of parchment, dabbed his quill into a pot of black ink, and immediately began scribbling away. The words came extremely easy, as if he were born to be a letter writer, like it was part of his very nature. Knowing exactly what to say and when to say it, James was done in a matter of minutes, folding the rose-smelling letter up carefully. Luckily, although not finding it completely surprising, there lay an empty envelope beside his elbow on top of some graded second-years' homework.

_Lily._

Without hesitating, James exited the office and walked briskly down the hall, directing his footsteps in whatever which way Felix directed him. His obedience was indeed rewarded, for as he walked into the fourth floor corridor, a girl with flaming red hair stepped out of the girls' restroom.

"Hello, Evans."

Lily spun around, clearly surprised at hearing the voice as everyone else was down at dinner. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the sight of him, but she attempted to speak casually. "Potter," she greeted in recognition as James approached her and fell into step beside her. "Shouldn't you be at dinner?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

For a moment, a flash of annoyance passed across her eyes, but amazingly the moment passed. James gratefully clapped his good friend Felix on the back. "For your information, I just left the Great Hall in order to come retrieve my bag that I must have left earlier in the bathroom," she explained, her hands on her hips.

Deciding that the moment didn't call for any words from him yet, James let the silence swallow the two of them up. They walked aimlessly, no one speaking, until James knew it was his turn to strike up the conversation. "Actually," James began, "I wasn't at dinner because I was tying to find you."

Lily glanced sharply at him, before resuming her brisk pace again. "What do you want this time, Potter? Trying to ask me for your stupid map back, because you're out of luck."

A small chuckle escaped his lips at her announcement. _Out of luck…if only she knew_, James thought happily. "Well, it seems as if it's my lucky day."

"What are you talking about?" Lily asked, her lips pursed.

Knowing that it was the right thing to do, James reached into his school bag and pulled out the little black book, revealing it to Lily. She simply stared at it for a moment, quickly calculating what this all meant. A look of harsh realization hit her face as she looked from James to the book he was holding. "You insolent, pathetic—_give it to me_," she hissed in a deadly whisper.

James was alarmed by the wild look in her eyes, and to make matters worse, the potion's nudges were becoming weaker and weaker, his time clearly running out. Felix was about to leave him, at the most crucial time. "Evans, it isn't what it look likes…well, I mean, it is, but—" he fumbled on his words, slowly handing the book back to Lily who snatched it up quickly.

"You disgust me," she seethed, stomping off in the other direction, but not before sending one last killer glare at the bespectacled Head Boy.

_Well, it could have gone worse,_ James thought to himself, awaiting direction of what he should do next. But when none came, James knew he was alone once again. At least it had worked; Lily's diary was now back in her possession, and James was still in one piece. His moment of glory, however, was short lived as he realized there was one important piece of the puzzle he had forgotten about.

The map.

OOO

Sirius, Remus, and Peter were walking up to the Gryffindor common room, convinced that James must have succeeded by now and was probably waiting for them up in their dormitory. As they rounded a corner, they were almost plowed down by a raging Lily Evans; she seemed so angry in fact, that her hair seemed to be cackling with electricity waiting to electrocute anyone who stood in her way.

It seemed as if Sirius wasn't afraid of being electrocuted. "Oy, Evans, got your diary back?" he greeted cheerfully, as Remus and Peter cringed in the background, slowly backing themselves away into a corner.

A dangerous growl burst from deep within Lily's throat as she rounded on Sirius, her wand out and ready. Sirius gulped slightly. "You think this situation is _amusing_?" she said, her voice hazardously low.

"If your wand wasn't pointed so close to my throat, then I would find it pretty funny, yes," Sirius replied, eyeing the menacing gleam in her green eyes. Losing his pride and dignity, Sirius seemed to deflate as Lily pressed her wand closer to Sirius' throat so that her wand tip was grazing his skin.

"You are bloody hilarious, Black," she responded in almost a whisper before hastily removing her wand and stalking off again. "I hope Merlin sends you all to hell," she said behind her back, her hands shaking uncontrollably in rage.

Trying to save some of his pride, Sirius shot back. "I guess we'll be meeting you there then, Evans, because you also stole something from us," he retorted. Remus attempted to hush his friend, but Lily retorted quicker, hurting them far worse than spells or jinxes.

"At least I'll be going down with my stolen property back in my possession," she said, her face red with the struggle of restraining her emotions, and her very excellent knowledge of hurtful hexes.

A look equivalent to someone who had just got hit by a bus spread across Sirius' face. "You're telling me you didn't give back our parchment?" he asked incredulously, staring around at his wide-eyed friends.

"Wow, you're intellect never fails to amaze me," she retorted sarcastically.

"Cough up our stuff, Evans," Sirius demanded, marching closer towards her.

A mad gleam shone in her eyes as she stared upon the three Marauders. "I'd love to hear you go repeat that phrase to Filch, Black." And without another word, Lily stormed off in a huff, leaving three very shocked friends in her wake.

"I—she—_what_?" Sirius stuttered, unable to express his emotions.

"It's…gone," Remus said with disbelief. After all those years they had put into sneaking around, finding all the secrets they could within Hogwarts, their creation was being held captive by the Squib caretaker, Argus Filch; their chance of ever getting it back was as much of a chance as McGonagall wearing her hair down. Impossible.

OOO

"Well, lads," Sirius stated as he entered the boys' dormitory, looking around at his friends gathered in a circle on the floor of their dorm later that night. James had returned a while earlier and told his friends everything that had happened, and in return Sirius had shared what they had learned. "I do believe we need a plan to get our map back," Sirius explained, his dark eyes glinting. "It appears the spawn of evil has let our beloved map fall into the hands of a non-Marauder."

"Hey!" James objected heatedly. "Lily is not the spawn of evil! The spawn of a way-better looking McGonagall maybe, but not evil."

The three other boys snorted. "How can you still defend…that…that monster!" Peter cried objectively.

A small cough from Sirius ended any further attempt of a retort from James. "As I was saying," he began again with the air of a general commanding his troops into battle, "we have gathered here in order to retrieve a friend of ours. To speak in more detail of the matter, we have with us James My-Stag-Is-Cooler-Than-Yours Potter. Take control of the stage, Prongs."

James grinned slightly as he stood up, making his way in front of the others. His predicament with Lily would temporarily have to be pushed aside out of his head while he focused on the problem at hand. "Thank you for that brief summary, Padfoot. Now, the plan I have devised may be dangerous. We may end up in detention—"

"—again—" broke in Sirius.

"—We may be faced with suspension—"

"—yet again—" Sirius added.

"—We may even be expelled. Are we all still in?" James finished dramatically, scrutinizing the three other Marauders.

Sirius raised his hand up in the air. "For the map and for rule-breakers around the world!"

Peter raised his hand up next. "Here, here!"

Remus hesitated, looking around at his friends, "Well, since the werewolf regulations won't allow me to have a job after Hogwarts anyway…what the hell; I'm in."

James grinned mischievously. "Right. Operation Jailbreak is now in action."

"Er…Prongs?" Sirius asked. "What exactly is your plan?"

James grinned and leaned forward and began explaining, in detail, the different parts of his plan. As upset and devastated as they all were, the four seventh years knew that sulking over their lost map wouldn't help anything; the only hope of ever retrieving the Marauder's Map would be if they all worked together to see Operation Jailbreak through.

**_OOO_**

**Chapter 5:** _The letter that James, or rather Felix, wrote to Lily is revealed..._

_Please review! And thanks for reading!_

_--HeyLookTheSnitch_


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** _Not mine._

**A/N:** _Thanks to all of the people who read and reviewed! Lils, cerdinalz, E Patronum, potterfreak001, betherny, Totally Raven, and warm summer days. _

_Sorry for taking a while to update. School has started once again (sigh), so I haven't had much to time to update, but since it's Labor Day weekend (YAY) I found time to load the next chapter! So, this chapter actually happens a little bit before the last chapter and it's from Lily's point of view. (It will all make sense once you read it, I promise)_

_I hope you all enjoy it! _

_**OOO**_

**Chapter 5: Surprises from Sirius**

Lily entered her dormitory, slamming the door behind her hard enough to knock off a picture frame from the wall. Ignoring the shouts of indignation from the group of witches living in the fallen painting, Lily strode over to her bed, throwing her retrieved diary onto it, before grabbing her pillow and screaming into it.

"Who shoved a broomstick up your arse?" Lily's friend, and dorm mate, Olivia Sheffield, asked over the top of her magazine.

Lily lowered the pillow from her face to stare at her friend. "Three guesses who, although you probably only need one," she answered, plopping down onto her bed.

Olivia put down her magazine, a look of sympathy in her eye. "Again?" she asked. "I thought you were beginning to like him."

"I never said I _liked_ him," she retorted angrily, trying to fight the blush from appearing on her face.

Her friend grinned, pushing her curly brown hair from her face. "Right. Okay."

"Fine, maybe I was starting to like him a little bit," Lily blurted out, her cheeks reddening, "but not anymore," she added quickly.

"What happened?"

In a fit of rage, Lily picked up her diary and shoved it into the air. "This," she screamed, waving the book about, "_this_ is what happened!"

"Your diary?" Olivia asked, a hint of confusion in her voice.

Lily huffed, throwing her little book back onto her bed. "Yes, my diary."

There was silence for a moment as Olivia waited for Lily to calm down. She was rather used to her friend's rant and raves about James Potter by now. "So, are you going to explain what this all means, or should I just pretend that I know what you're talking about?" Olivia finally asked, her blue eyes curious.

Sighing, Lily recounted to her friend all of what had happened earlier that day; Olivia uttered sympathetic words occasionally, but in all honesty she found it rather amusing. A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

"What is so funny?" Lily demanded, catching the grin, "There is nothing funny about this situation, Liv."

Olivia tried to rearrange her face into a more understanding expression, but gave up as a small giggle escaped her lips. Lily's eyes narrowed. "I'm sorry, Lils, but it sounds kind of…comic. Although," she began again, at the look on Lily's face, "I'm sure it wasn't funny when it happened."

Lily crossed her arms, mumbling incoherent rude things about James. The silence was broken when Olivia laughed shortly, "You _threw_ it at his head?"

"Shut up," Lily retorted, her bad mood refusing to lift. It didn't help matters either that her supposed 'best friend' was laughing at the situation rather than calling Potter obscene names.

"Oh, come on, Lily. Wouldn't you find it funny if it had happened to me and I was telling you about it?"

"No, I wouldn't, because first of all, it's not funny in the slightest; second of all, you don't keep a diary, so I would never have to worry about this happening to you; and third of all, you don't like bloody James Potter," Lily explained quickly, counting off the reasons on her fingers.

A mysterious smile made its way across Olivia's face. "So, you admit you still like him then?"

Lily's head snapped up as she stared at her friend. "I never said that," she denied, attempting to hide her guilty face by moving to the windowsill to look out the window.

"I think you did, Lily," her friend taunted, waving a finger at Lily.

Lily stomped her foot on the ground angrily. "I refuse to like a boy who can't respect my personal belongings. If he can't respect my property, he can't respect me."

Olivia smirked. "And I'm guessing he can't like a girl who doesn't respect his personal property either?"

"What are you talking about?" Lily said quickly, averting her friend's gaze.

"You know what I'm talking about," Olivia said, reading her magazine again.

"I do not know that that is a thing I know," she replied, scratching her head in confusion of her own words.

"Well, then," Olivia began, putting down her magazine once more, "I'll just spell it out for you. James' parchment."

Lily paled, looking out the window again. "That was _not_ my fault." It _really_ hadn't been her fault…and yet, she couldn't help but feel guilty about it.

Olivia shrugged. "Maybe so. But it was still in your possession when you lost it."

Groaning, Lily looked closely at her friend. "How does that have to do with anything?"

Her friend shrugged carelessly. "It may have nothing to do with your diary issue, or it may relate to it a tiny bit."

"I hate it when you get all philosophical on me," Lily complained, rubbing her temples soothingly.

Olivia laughed as she stood up. "Yeah, well what our friends for?"

"They aren't meant to try to make you feel guilty when your diary was in the possession of a Marauder," Lily said grumpily.

Olivia merely smiled. "I'll talk to you later, Lils. Hopefully the tables haven't been completely cleared yet; chocolate pudding sounds good to me right now. You want me to bring you some back?"

Lily shook her head. "No, that's alright. See you," Lily said as her friend walked out of the dorm, leaving her alone.

Finding nothing else to do, and needing to let out some more vented up steam, she picked up her diary, flicking through the pages until she found a blank one.

And that's when _it_ fell out.

A small white envelope fell from the back of the diary, fluttering onto her bed right where she could see it. Curiosity gripped her attention as she stared at it, wondering how in the world it got there. One lone single word was written on the top of the envelope in a messy scrawl, the black ink contrasting vibrantly with the whiteness of the cover. _Lily._

Since it was addressed to her, Lily reached out and picked it up, sliding a finger under the seal. She pulled out a piece of parchment which was folded neatly and covered with the same handwriting as on the front. Careful not to rip it, she unfolded it. _Was that roses?_ She asked herself, as a powerful, yet pleasing aroma drifted through her nose. She breathed in the scent deeply and it oddly soothed her. Returning her attention back towards the letter, she began to read.

_Lily,_

_I just wanted to apologize for not returning your diary as soon as you asked for it. I know I invaded your privacy and I really am sorry. You probably don't believe me, which I wouldn't blame you seeing as I lost your trust a while back, but I felt like I should apologize anyway. _

_Also, I wanted to let you know that I really did enjoy being friends with you for the short amount of time you considered me one, before I screwed everything up. Curiosity really can become a sin when you allow it to get the better of you; I guess I do that a lot. Maybe, one day I'll regain your trust and we can start over. _

_James_

_PS- I'm sorry about the death of your dad. Again, I'm sorry if it's a sore subject and I shouldn't have brought it up, but I know how you must have felt for I almost lost both of my parents last year. If you ever want to talk--although I'm sure you'd rather not talk to me at the moment--I just wanted to let you know I'm here._

She stared at it, speechless, for a good five minutes, completely at a loss for any words. But then a jumble of emotions began to rise inside of her chest, just waiting to burst out of its jail cell. Rage; the first emotion that took over her sense of reasoning. How dare that prat take her diary, read it, and then mention her father's death to her. No one was supposed to know about her dad's passing; if everyone found out, the school would just send her pity presents and talk to her as if she were a delicate glass goblet about to shatter into pieces. She did not need pity.

And yet, another emotion, the complete opposite of the first, escaped the hold she had on it. _What was it exactly?_ She couldn't quite place this new and strange feeling. Was it_ liking_? Lily shook her head, desperately willing herself to shove this foreign emotion into the back of her mind. However hard she tried to suppress the feeling, this sense of liking fought harder attempting to seep into the depths of her understanding. In all honesty, she couldn't deny that a small crush had started to form for James Potter, her sworn enemy since third year. But after all he had just done to her, how could she possibly still hold a bit of fancy for this inconsiderate jerk?

The letter was shaking in her hand as she re-read it, desperately trying to find something in the letter that would make her hatred for Potter resurface. Her attempts were to no avail. This note was so..._sincere_; there was no better word for it. His mention about her father wasn't meant to be a gloating tool that he had read her inner most thoughts, but they were a true sense of concern. And it wasn't pity either; it seemed more as if he had used it in order to rekindle their lost friendship. The note made her remember all the reasons she had started falling for him; his loyalty, his soft side, and his helpfulness towards her.

But then she remembered the parchment that belonged to the Marauders that she had so foolishly let out of her possession. What if James hated her now? Olivia was right. She had broken respect for James' little joke-parchment by taking it and then letting Filch get his hands on it. She had done the exact same thing he had, except worse because now there was no way she could give it back to its rightful owners. This whole fight seemed so stupid, so childish, and yet it had been almost as destructive as an Unforgivable Curse.

She knew what she had to do. Hastily making up her mind—before she could allow herself to rethink her decision—she folded up the note, replaced it in its envelope, and ran out of her dormitory and into the common room. Her mission: search for James Potter.

"Bla—Sirius," Lily called out as she descended the staircase and entered the common room. Using first names was much more friendly than referring to a person by their last name, and right now Lily needed to be as friendly as humanly possible.

Sirius looked up from his discussion with his current girlfriend, Alexia Riley, and his eyes instantly narrowed as they landed upon the red-head. "Hello, daughter of the devil," he said, turning his head on her. Lily's stomach dropped; this would be harder than she thought. She knew she had upset them, but seriously it _was_ only a piece of paper designed to talk to anybody who tried to read it.

"Look, I'm sorry for losing your piece of parchment," she said, trying to gain the boy's attention again.

He mumbled something incoherently that sounded oddly like, "Piece of parchment my arse."

"Can you please tell me where James is?" Lily asked, sitting on the arm of the couch that Sirius and his girlfriend were occupying. Cutting straight to the chase seemed the best thing to do at the moment.

Sirius looked at her suspiciously. "Why do you want to know?"

"I want to talk to him."

"That's girl code for 'I'm going to kick his butt and then bury him alive'," Sirius said, crossing his arms determinedly.

"He's up in their dormitory," Alexia answered, rolling her eyes at her boyfriend. Sirius glared at her.

"Thanks," Lily replied, smiling. She turned around to head up there, feeling proud with herself for winning the conversation.

"No, I can not allow you up there," Sirius yelled, jumping up from the couch and running over to the boys' staircase, blocking the entrance.

Placing her hands on her hips, she said, "Sirius I promise I just want to talk to him, okay?"

"Just hours ago you were condemning us to hell. I don't believe you Miss Evil."

Resisting the urge to move Sirius forcefully with her wand, Lily breathed in deeply. "Just let me up there."

"I can't."

"You can't?" she repeated disbelievingly. Honestly, this boy could be so irritating sometimes.

"Yes, I can't."

"Well, how come?" she questioned, cocking her head to the side in sign of mock curiosity. She smiled sweetly at him.

Sirius snorted. "Flattery isn't going to work on me, Evans."

Lily groaned and simply tried to push past Sirius, but he held her back. "Sirius, you are really starting to annoy me."

"Sorry, but a top secret Marauder meeting is about to take place up there, and James is preparing," Sirius explained, blowing a kiss at his girlfriend who was leaving to her dormitory.

Lily observed him carefully. "You're lying," she said flatly.

Sirius puffed out his chest indignantly. "I am not. He's in deep thought trying to devise a plan for retrieving our map that you so gratefully gave to Filch."

"Map?" Lily asked, true curiosity showing across her features. _Map?_ What did that mean?

Sirius swore under his breath before he tried to cover up his mistake. He looked up at her nervously, attempting to laugh. "Map? I didn't say map. I said parchment."

"Sirius, you said map."

"I did not."

"It was a map that I lost?" Lily asked attentively, probing Sirius for answers.

Sirius seemed to deflate as he let out a long, deep breath. "Can you just pretend you didn't hear that?" he asked her, his eyes hopeful. Bugger, sometimes he wished someone would just sew his mouth together.

"I most certainly can not. You said it! I heard it! I want you to tell me what kind of map it was," her voice was assertive as she stared at him with her bright green eyes.

"Not like it matters anymore, because you already handed the Marauder's most prized possession over to the other spawn of the devil, Filch," Sirius answered. "Now, I will not allow you up to see James' after the information you just coaxed out of me."

"I didn't coax anything out of you. You just blurted it out."

"So? You're still not getting past me."

Lily sighed tiredly, realizing she would never win against an insanely stubborn Sirius Black. "Fine," she responded irritably, "I'll just let you get on with that 'top secret meeting' then. Tell James I want to talk to him, okay?"

"Sure thing," Sirius responded, bounding up the stairs. Lily was sure that all of what she had just said had flown into Sirius' right ear and out the other. Her chance of Sirius actually letting James know that she wanted to talk to him was slim to none. Sirius turned around quickly when he reached the top. "And don't you dare tell anybody of what you just heard from me. That's meant for Marauder ears only."

"I promise," she stated, her tone bored. Lily watched him go, her excitement of being able to talk to James diminishing as Sirius disappeared into the boys' dormitory. She could just walk up the stairs, ignoring Sirius' pleas for her not to go up, and demand to talk to James. Right as she put her foot on the first stair however, she heard someone shout her name.

"Lily! I brought chocolate," Olivia called, clambering out of the portrait hole and running over to where Lily stood, her foot hovering over the stairs leading to James. "Even though you said you didn't want it, I know chocolate always makes you feel better."

Lily let out a forced grin. James would have to wait for another day. "Thanks, Liv." She said thoughtfully, allowing her friend to pull her up the girls' staircase. With one last look up towards the boys' dormitory, Lily turned and followed Olivia.

**_OOO_**

_Oh, silly Sirius. lol! _

_Please review! and thanks for reading!_

_--HeyLookTheSnitch_


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:**_ Honestly, do you really think I'm J.K. Rowling? Well, let me clarify just incase; I'm not her._

**A/N:** _Thanks to the following reviewers: Hikari Annie, Totally Raven, Lils, HaloAngel, Sam's Firefly, and warm summer days. Thank you so much! You are my inspiration to keep writing!_

_Hm, so sorry about the long wait. School has been hectic and I just didn't have time to write the next chapter. But finally, this weekend while I was lying in bed sick (ugh, I hate being sick...) I decided to write and here's the result! _

_Since it's been a while, here's a short re-cap. So, when we last left off, Lily had read James' letter and had attempted, and failed, to get Sirius to give her permission to talk to James. Also, the boys were coming up with a plan to get their beloved map back..._

_I hope you like chapter 6! And sadly, we're coming to the end of this story. Only one or two chapters left! So depressing, this story was like my baby! lol_

_Happy reading!_

**_OOO_**

**Chapter 6: Operation Jailbreak**

"Padfoot, why are you acting like my personal body guard today?" James asked as Sirius peeked around the hallway corner first to insure the coast was clear. All day Sirius had been following James around school, looking around corners before James could turn them apparently looking for an axe-murderer who was sneaking about. He had volunteered Remus and Peter to circle James as well between classes, and every time Lily would pass, Sirius, Remus, and Peter would tighten their circle around James.

James couldn't fathom what this was all about. At first he just thought that his friends were being overly friendly today until they got to lunch and Sirius insisted on tasting James' pumpkin juice to make sure it hadn't been poisoned.

"You never know where Evans may be hiding," Sirius said stealthily, pushing James flat up against a wall as a group of giggling girls passed by.

Pushing his best friend roughly off him, James straightened his Head Boy badge as a sniggering fourth year Slytherin walked by, sneering at the Marauders. "What?" Sirius hollered after the boy's back, "You've never seen a guy protect his best friend before?"

_What in the name of Godric Gryffindor had gotten into Sirius?_ "Moony, do you guys know something I don't?" James asked, as Sirius took the lead of the group and glared at any girl who happened to cross his path.

"Apparently," Remus began as Sirius whipped out his wand upon seeing a flash of something red, which turned out to be a colored reflection off of somebody's wrist-watch, "Padfoot has a suspicion that Lily is out to kill you," Remus finished, smirking slightly as Sirius told off the unfortunate owner of the red-light reflecting watch.

"I don't have a suspicion," Sirius said, jumping back into the conversation, "it's a fact. Evans told me herself last night."

Peter walked along side James as he spoke up. "Lily told you she wanted Prongs dead?" he asked.

Waving his hand as if brushing the question off, Sirius said, "She _implied_ it."

His heart sinking slightly, James wondered if the Felix Felicis had failed him when it had urged him to write that note. Or perhaps Lily still hadn't gotten it…or maybe she had already found it and was disgusted even more by his attempt to fix their relationship, or lack thereof. But why would she want him dead? She had already gotten her revenge by losing their map; they were even. What more could she possibly want?

Remus rolled his eyes at Sirius. "I thought you said that she told you she only wanted to talk to James. You didn't tell me anything about Lily mentioning she wished to become a murderer."

Sirius sighed, as if he were handed the ghastly task of teaching a toddler their ABCs. "Moony. When a woman says 'they want to talk', nothing good ever comes from that. Girls are complicated, much more complex than us males. 'Let's talk' is always code for 'this isn't working; we should break up', or 'let's talk so I can lead you away from other people and do what I want to you', or—"

"—or maybe she just wanted to talk," Remus interrupted simply.

Sirius crossed his arms defiantly. "Look, do you want to waste time analyzing Evans' emotions and thoughts, or do you want to get our plan to get our map back rolling?"

As depressed as he was about the fact that Lily may never give him another chance again, James' ears perked up at the mention of their plan. His heart beat began to race excitedly as it usually did before their pranks made their debuts to the student population. James nodded, the old mischievous glint returning to his eyes. "Let's do this."

OOO

His body full covered in his silvery cloak, James immediately became invisible to everyone as he stood around the corner from where the caretaker's office was located. Everybody should be making their way back from dinner by now…any second Filch would come running to his office, his precious Mrs. Norris strutting behind him.

Right on cue, a wheezing voice came from down the hall and James could fully see Filch muttering under his breath to his cat companion. "….nasty children, the lot of them. If they knew I had the authority to whip them raw, never again would they trail mud into the Great Hall…"

The caretaker pulled out a set of jingling keys from his raggedy coat pocket, unlocked his office door, and closed it again with a snap. James grinned from his spot. Filch was right where they wanted him…

Knowing the timing was perfect, James reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small mirror. "Sirius Black," he muttered into the round piece of glass as some Hufflepuffs passed by him on their way to their common room. For a second, James was simply staring at his reflection, but then Sirius' shining face appeared in the mirror.

"We're all set up here," Sirius greeted as Remus stuck his face closer to the mirror as well so now James could see them both.

A grin crossed across James' face. "Excellent. Filch just entered his office. And Wormtail?" James asked.

"He's at his lookout post," Remus confirmed.

"You two remember the incantation and everything, right?"

A mad gleam covered Sirius' features, a coy smile spreading across his face. James could see Sirius reach into his robes and pull out his slender wand. "Of course, mate. We've got this."

"Have fun," James exclaimed.

"Don't we always?" Sirius said and with that Sirius' and Remus' faces disappeared and James was once more looking at his reflection.

A few seconds passed quietly as more and more students passed through the hallway where James stood in invisible. Anxiously, he waited for any noise that would alert to the plan being put into action. And then…

_BOOM!_

The ceiling right above him shook violently as the sound of something very big and very heavy fell onto the ground. Many students jumped in surprise and stared up at the ceiling as if they could see right through it.

The door to Filch's office blasted open, and not a split second after the noise, Argus darted away up the staircase to the floor above. In his haste to catch the rule-breaking miscreant he had forgotten to lock his office door behind him.

James smiled. It was on.

OOO

"Oh, come on, Lils. You're bound to get a chance to talk to him sometime soon," Olivia was saying to a distraught Lily after dinner.

"Not if bloody-Sirius-Black keeps interfering. I mean, did you see that look he gave me—"

A large explosion sounded from a couple floors above them, causing Lily to break off and glace upward. "What the—"

The ground vibrated slightly as the sound of a bookcase falling over broke through the happy chattering of the crowd. "If Peeves is throwing the trophies in the Trophy Room around again, I swear…" Lily muttered as she grabbed her friend and together they raced up the staircases, pushing through the throng of students who were all attempting to locate the source of commotion.

As they climbed their second set of stairs, Lily began to distinguish different noises. Now accompanying the loud explosion sounds were shrieks of cheering and laughter mixed in with the clanking of metal.

"It sounds as if someone is sparring with forks and knives," Olivia commented. And her guess wasn't entirely off. As the two girls rounded a corner into an opening, a very loud, but amusing scene, met their eyes.

In the middle of the group of student spectators, two suits of armor appeared to be having an intense wrestling contest as the other stationary suits of armor shouted out encouraging cheers. "Your sword, dear sir. Use your sword!" one of the knights called out as one of the competitors made a dent in his enemy's chest armor with his medieval spiked-club.

"What is going on here?" Lily yelled, trying to make herself heard over the noise right as one of the suits of armor got thrown heavily onto the ground, causing the portrait nearby to totter dangerously on its hook. As she tried to make her way closer to the commotion, someone reached out and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her backwards through a concealed passage way behind a tapestry.

"What the hell, Sirius?" Lily exclaimed, clutching her chest wildly. "You scared the mess out of me!"

Sirius chuckled as Remus watched the fight occurring outside. "Sorry, but I couldn't let you put a stop to this," Sirius said, still clasping her arm so she couldn't get away.

Lily's eyes widened. "_You_ did this?" she asked, staring at Sirius and Remus.

Remus had the heart to look guilty, but Sirius merely laughed as a young Ravenclaw nearly got beheaded by a wildly slashing sword. "It's funny, no?" he asked.

"Funny?" Lily said in disbelief, waving her hand at the commotion happening outside. "You think having portrait inhabitants running for cover, knights battling each other with lethal weapons, and students nearly getting a body part decapitated is _amusing_?" she exclaimed.

"Well, when you put it like that…." Remus stated ashamedly, glancing at Lily shortly.

"I'm sorry, but I have to put a stop to this. Endangering other students…honestly." She made to tare back through the hidden passage way, but Sirius tightened his grip on her, a smile appearing on his lips.

"No need, Filch is here to save the day," he stated, shooting a victorious look at Remus who smiled weakly. At least their plan was working so far.

"Oh please, you know as well as I that Filch can't do anything about this mess," Lily said, attempting to pull her arm out of Sirius' hand.

"Exactly," Sirius stated happily.

Lily glared, staring at the two Marauders, and then something clicked. Something was missing from this picture. "Where's James and Peter?" Lily asked curiously, her eyes narrowing. Whatever this was, it couldn't be good.

"That's nothing you should worry about dear Head Girl," Sirius responded.

Her temper flared, but was stopped from exploding at the sight of Filch attempting to break the two brutal knights apart with a mop. In one swift motion, one of the competitors reached out, grabbed the offending mop out of the caretaker's hands and had whacked Filch upside the head with it. Cursing angrily and rubbing his pounding head, Filch ran from the scene and back to his office, probably off to find some other choice for a weapon.

Sirius' smile fell and Remus watched horridly as Filch exited the corridor. "Oh no…" Remus said.

With one hand still holding on to Lily, Sirius pulled a mirror from his pocket hastily. "James Potter." Lily gasped when the untidy black hair of James appeared in the glass. Mildly surprised, James looked at Lily then back towards Sirius, confusion written on his face.

"Prongs, mate, Filch is heading back towards you," Sirius exclaimed. Lily watched as James' eyes widened fearfully. His hand, which had been hovering over an assortment of files in a filing cabinent, dropped to his side. "Is there anyway you can hold him off? I haven't found it yet!" James said desperately.

"Look, mate, you have your cloak. Just stay there until he leaves again," advised Sirius.

"What about Mrs. Norris?" Remus asked. The four boys had always had a suspicion the somehow that cat could tell where they were even when hidden by the invisibility cloak. Cheers and clanking noises could still be heard as the battle raged on outside.

James opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out as he his head quickly turned sideways. "Guys, he's here. I have to go!" And with that the mirror went blank once again.

Sirius swore as Remus began pacing frantically. Lily bit her lip. "This was the plan, wasn't it? The plan to get your map back?" she asked slowly.

Remus did a double take. "You know about our map?"

"There's no time for that now," Sirius said hastily. "We're going to have to figure out a way to save Prongs and fast."

Lily chewed the inside of her cheeks nervously. After all, if James was caught he could potentially get expelled and it would be mostly her fault. "You two get this situation under control," she said suddenly, "I'm hoping you two know the counter spell for this prank of yours. I'll go get James."

OOO

James didn't dare to even breathe as Filch entered his office, Mrs, Norris slinking in behind her master. To James' horror, Filch closed the door behind him. Immobile and helpless, James stood beside the open filing cabinet he had been searching through, having not had the time to close it.

"If only I was allowed to hang those kids by the thumbs in the dungeons…rule-breaking pranks…we will catch them, my sweet," Filch was muttering to his cat as he limped across his office, apparently thinking about what to do next. James fleetingly thought it was odd how Filch hadn't immediately called for another teacher to come put an end to the prank upstairs; perhaps he didn't want the students knowing he was helpless…

Mrs. Norris' lamp-like eyes turned straight towards the spot where James stood underneath his invisibility cloak. He had to get out of here…but if he left without the map, their whole plan would have been for nothing. James quickly sucked in his breath as Filch approached the filing cabinet and wrenched open a drawer, pulling out a wad of detention slips. That's when something caught his attention.

_Confiscated and Highly Dangerous._

Why hadn't he looked there first? As quietly as he could, and while Filch was busy pulling out more and more detention slips, James reached into the file and pulled out the first thing his hand came in contact with. Praying it was the map, James withdrew his clenched hand from the cabinet right as Filch shut the drawer. In his haste to make sure his fingers didn't get smashed in the drawer, James drew his hand back, the edge of the cloak making contact with Filch's arm.

At least he had gotten the map.

Filch stared around wildly, his eyes wide as if it would help him see better. "Who's there?" he called out in an oily, shaky voice. Mrs. Norris meowed, her eyes following James as he silently made his way over to the door. Even if the caretaker saw his door open by an invisible force, he would never know it was James.

Victoriously, James ripped open the office door and sprinted out of the office. Before he knew what was happening, he ran into something solid that had been running from the opposite direction and he, and the person, tumbled to the ground, rolling over one another.

Completely winded, the obstacle he had rammed into landed right on top of him and his invisibility cloak was no longer covering him but lying in a bundle underneath his back.

"James?" the voice exclaimed surprisingly.

"Lily?"

"Well, well, well, I thought you would have had something to do with all of this, Potter."

James' heart dropped as Lily quickly scrambled off of him and onto her feet, the Marauder's Map still clutched tightly in his hand. Why hadn't he had enough sense to put it into his pocket?

"I believe two weeks of detention is in order; if I had it my way you'd be hanging by your feet in the lowest part of this castle," Filch said, sheer happiness apparent in his voice. James stiffly sat up, making sure his cloak was still hidden beneath his buttocks. The last thing he need was for his cloak to be taken away as well.

Bringing the smell of rotten mothballs down with him, Filch leaned over James and snatched the originally confiscated item from its rightful owner. "You can join Miss red-head here for a third week of detention." Filch sneered.

James looked over at Lily who looked mildly upset at getting a detention. "What? No, Lily had nothing to do with any of this," he tried to assure Filch, because in all honesty, Lily hadn't done anything…except giving the map to Filch in the first place…

"It's alright," Lily said, glancing at James, "I probably deserve it."

"Too right you are, missy. My office tomorrow at eight. The Headmaster will most certainly be hearing about how his two heads broke the rules. Back in the old days students were lucky to get a detention. You would do well with a few whippings, Potter, but, regrettably, Dumbledore sticks with detentions…"

OOO

"Prongs!" Sirius, Remus, and Peter exclaimed as Lily and James walked into the common room.

"Is everything alright?" Remus asked, glancing between the two of them.

"I got three weeks of detention; Lily got one too," James said, plopping himself down onto a chair. He looked around at Lily. "Why were you running down there anyway?" he asked.

Lily shrugged, but attempted to get her spunk back. She couldn't get too soft now. "To save your sorry arse, you pathetic lump," she retorted. "Honestly, I can't believe you four would be so daft."

"I'm guessing we still have no map then," Sirius said glumly. There was silence as the five of them simply sat and thought. "I think I'll get to bed…maybe I'll wake up and find out this whole thing has been one horrible dream…" Sirius drifted off, groaning as he stood up and headed over to the boys' staircase. Remus and Peter soon followed, leaving Lily and James in an awkward silence.

Neither one said anything for a while. Lily looked up and studied James' features as he stared deeply into the fire. He was rather cute, and the fact the he had tried to save her from receiving detentions had been sweet… "I…er…I got the letter," she said quietly as the many students around them paid them no attention as they finished up homework.

James looked up and stared at her. His heart began pumping and his feet began shifting nervously. James Potter never got nervous! Except when he was around Lily Evans. Not really knowing what to say he simply nodded.

Lily sighed. "I tried to come find you last night…I wanted to talk to you."

"I'm sorry," James said, catching her eyes with his. He couldn't quite figure out her reaction towards the letter, but he hoped it wasn't a bad one. "I just…I liked it when we were friends and all…"

She began to blush slightly. _Get a hold of yourself, Evans. It's only James Potter._ But Lily couldn't help herself. No longer was this boy only some annoying thorn in her side who constantly pricked her. "No, don't be sorry. It wasn't arrogant, pig-headed, or anything. The letter was…nice."

_**OOO**_

_Sorry that it had to be cut of at the part! I'll try to update sooner this time! Hopefully next weekend. _

_Next chapter: Confessions and stuff like that..._

_Thanks for reading!_

_--HeyLookTheSnitch_


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** _First of all, I'm not British...Second of all, I'm not famous or more wealthy than the Queen of England...Third of all, well, I guess you pretty much assumed I'm not J.K. Rowling._

**A/N:** _First, I would like to thank the following reviewers: ChocolateIsMyDrug, luvlylittlelady, Lils, E Patronum, warm summer days, Totally Raven, Ilana Potter, and Sam's Firefly. You guys are amazing!_

_Hey everybody! I'm back and ready to post the next, and last, chapter of this story! It's so sad, yet I'm sort of proud because it's the first story I've written that I've finished! I'm going to miss writing this though...it amused me greatly when it gave me an excuse to ditch my homework...lol!_

_So, now that I'm at the end of this, I really want to thank all of you who reviewed! You guys are the greatest! Thank you so much! I hope you find the ending good. For a while I was debating on whether or not to end it here, or carry it on and just have it go until the end of James' and Lily's seventh year, but I decided to end it, simply because the plot of this story was only based around the diary idea and the fact that I'm starting a Lily and James seventh year story (however, I don't think I will be posting it for a while as I only have the first chapter written)._

_Thanks again for reviewing and I hope you've all enjoyed this story! Without further ado, here's chapter 7_.

**_OOO_**

**Chapter 7: The Trouble with a Diary**

"_I'm sorry," James said, catching her eyes with his. "I just…I liked it when we were friends and all…" _

She began to blush slightly. Get a hold of yourself, Evans. It's only James Potter. But Lily couldn't help herself. No longer was this boy only some annoying thorn in her side who constantly pricked her. "No, don't be sorry. It wasn't arrogant, pig-headed, or anything. The letter was…nice."

OOO

James' mind went blank momentarily as he simply sat still, staring at Lily and making sure what she had just said wasn't a joke. When the silence enveloped them for a few more minutes, a feeling of elation shot through him; thank you, Felix! "I meant what I said," James said, feeling like he had to say something to clarify how true those words in the letter had been.

A small smile spread across her face as she nodded. "I know." She sighed deeply and stared out the window, the sky painted various shades of pink and purple as the sun disappeared behind the horizon. "I'm sorry for losing your map," she finally said, turning her head to observe him.

The map. James shrugged nonchalantly, apparently pretending that the loss of their map didn't have an impact on him. "How'd you figure out what it was?"

"Sirius isn't the best secret keeper," Lily responded innocently. "He sort of let it slip last night while I was looking for you." James laughed. "What was it a map of exactly?"

Shaking his head back and forth, a mischievous smile plastered itself across his features. "That, my dear, I can't tell you. You know too much already."

"Another Marauder secret?" she said, rolling her eyes.

"Naturally."

He leaned back into the couch, realizing how much he had actually missed interacting with Lily when they weren't fighting or screaming at each other. Even though it had only been a couple of days, it had felt like a lifetime. He snorted quietly, thinking how sappy Sirius would have found this. Why _did_ he like Lily so much? Of course she was beautiful, any guy could figure that much out, but there was something else that attracted James to her. She was…_different._

Glancing up to look at her, James was surprised to see her deep emerald eyes staring at him. "You know I didn't _intentionally _give that map to Filch, right?"

"You didn't?" James asked, taken aback. He and the rest of the Marauders had just assumed…

A short laugh escaped from her mouth. "James, I may have been mad at you, but I would never have stooped that low," she said. "Filch found me looking at it in between classes and confiscated it from me after it insulted him. That Padfoot is one entertaining character." She winked at James, a contented smile illuminating her eyes.

"Maybe so, but not as good as that Prongs," James objected quickly.

A small smile flickered across her lips; this could be entertaining. "But Padfoot just has that irresistible charm," Lily continued, keeping a straight face. From the reaction on James' face, Lily instantly knew that she was right in suspecting who the mysterious Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs truly were.

A silence followed this statement.

_Could Lily really be falling for Padfoot? For Sirius_? James shuddered, cursing the map and the fact that they had charmed that map to speak to anybody who tried to read it. He tried to make his expression appear passive, but the sudden arouse of jealousy was building behind his eyes. A small laugh broke through the incredibly stony—or so it had seemed to James—silence. Confused, James looked up only to find Lily smirking at him; his eyes widened.

"How long have you known?" He mentally sighed in relief, incredibly elated to find out Lily wasn't going to marry Sirius anytime soon.

"Honestly, you guys could have made those comments a little more subtle. Only you would have said something as corny '_most beautiful witch he has ever seen and hopes to have her for his own.'" _James was surprised, however, to find that her tone wasn't annoyed or disgusted, but rather amused. Maybe they did have a chance to rebuild their friendship after all.

"Hey, that was not corny! That's sheer poetry," James objected heartily.

A disbelieving gleam covered Lily's features, but she was grinning nonetheless. "Oh yes, such poetry," she said sarcastically, pushing him in the shoulder.

James smiled. _Was she actually flirting with him?_ His mind soared, and his strong male ego wanted to do nothing more than to grab Lily and snog her senseless. Yet, a voice, a voice that sounded oddly like Remus', warned him not to do anything incredibly stupid…like stealing a diary.

As another awkward silence threatened to settle down amongst the two of them, Lily spoke up. "So, how much did you actually read?"

Paling slightly, James shifted uncomfortably. Should he bring up her father again? He wasn't even sure bringing up the first time in the letter had been such a great idea. "You know, I never knew you hated me so much. Really, more than three quarters of the book must be filled with rantings about how annoying you find me. Way to deflate a man's ego."

A low, quiet laugh issued from her mouth as she tucked a strand piece of vibrant red hair behind her ear. "Yeah, well you were quite obnoxious, but…you've changed. I don't know how to explain it but…" she trailed off, shrugging. She hated how he could do this to her. One minute she could be ready to hex his face off, but the next…the next minute she found herself completely taken by him. There was no denying the fact she liked him, but it really was much simpler when the mere sight of him used to repulse her. But now…

"Keep yourself this way, James," she said, staring at him. "No more stealing people's stuff, otherwise, as Head Girl, I might just have to report you to Dumbledore."

James snorted, unable to keep his happiness undetected. "Well, I can't promise anything. You know what they always say, once a Marauder, always a Marauder."

"No one says that, James," Lily argued.

James frowned mockingly. "Well they should," he fought back determinedly. He watched as Lily shook her head humorously and then she stood up, stretching.

"On that note," she said, "I'll just be off to bed." James instantly stood up as well and followed Lily as she made her way to the bottom of the girls' staircase. He didn't want their conversation to end; he was afraid that if they didn't keep going then her forgiveness would cease.

She turned towards him at the base of the staircase, her voice pulling him out of his thoughts. "Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then," she said, watching him.

"Definitely, and I promise I'll be there for Head patrols too," he assured. They simply stood there, observing one another, and before James really knew what was happening, Lily had leaned up and kissed him softly on the cheek.

Completely dazed, James watched as Lily mumbled an embarrassed 'Goodnight' and sped-walked up the staircases. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind, desperately wanting to say something, _anything_, before Lily disappeared from his sight for the night.

"Wait," he finally called out, right before Lily opened the door to her dormitory. "Does that mean you'll go out with me now?" The question had escaped him before he really knew what he was saying. He mentally slapped himself; that kiss on the cheek had completely thrown him off…

Lily turned back to face him. "Perhaps," she said evasively, but she was unable to keep the grin from spreading across her face.

With a snap, the girls' dorm door closed, leaving a gob-smacked James Potter feeling as if he were on top of the world. This feeling was better than winning the Quidditch Cup, better than winning the Inter-House Points Competition. This was a bloody _miracle_.

OOO

"You don't think she's killing him, do you?" Sirius asked forty-five minutes later after they had left Lily and James down in the common room unsupervised.

Peter and Remus glanced at each other, but before they could respond, their dormitory door swung open and their glowing friend stepped in. James smiled broadly upon seeing his shocked friends' expressions before doing some sort of pirouetting leap across the floor and landing in a jumble on top of his bed sheets.

"What in the name of Merlin has she done to you," Sirius asked aghast, eyeing his best friend worriedly. "Moony, Peter, quick. Go get Madame Pomfrey and McGonagall. Evans put some sort of spell on Prongs!" Sirius rushed over to James' side as Remus and Peter scrambled to get a good look at their friend as well. James simply lay still, his eyes closed and a smile plastered across his lips.

"Prongs, mate, speak to us!" Sirius said, shaking his friend by the shoulder. He turned towards Remus and Peter. "I thought I told you to go get the bloody nurse!" he barked. Peter jumped and made to run out of the room, but Remus grabbed his shoulder holding him back.

Remus leaned over James. "Prongs, what happened?" he asked, clearly wanting evidence before running off and waking up Pomfrey or McGonagall; seeing their Headmistress in her nightdress was a pretty scarring scene.

There was silence, and then…

"She…kissed me," James exclaimed, his eyes snapping open. He seemed to brighten at the memory, his hazel eyes luminous.

"Excuse me?" Peter said, all four boys convinced they had heard wrong.

James sat up. "Lily Evans kissed me!"

In one swift motion, Sirius had reached out and slugged his friend in the shoulder. "Is that all? You bloody well scared the daylights out of me! We thought she had done something unheard of to you," Sirius said loudly.

Rubbing his sore shoulder, James continued to grin unnaturally looking around at his group of friends. "This _is_ unheard of!" James cried happily. "Did you not hear me? She actually kissed me!"

"True, very true," Sirius said thoughtfully as Remus and Peter nodded.

James sighed contentedly, still reliving that un-forgetful moment. Granted, it _had_ only been on the cheek, but the fact that she had even done _that_ was extraordinary. Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought this was how this whole fiasco would have turned out.

"So let me get this straight," began Remus. "You stole her diary, kept it, read it, lost our map with no hope of retrieving it now, and you still got the girl?" he finished in utter disbelief.

"That's amazing," Peter said in awe, clear admiration shining on his face as he looked at James.

_It really was unbelievable_, James thought. How had this all happened? In a time span of a couple of days Lily had gone from tolerating him, to completely despising him, to kissing him? It took all of his self-restraint not to stand up on his bed and begin jumping up and down on it out of veritable bliss.

"No, Wormtail. Lily is amazing," James said, knowing fully well how corny that statement sounded but not the least bit caring.

Sirius chuckled, clapping his friend on the back in a 'good for you' sort of gesture. "See mates? That's the trouble with a diary. It turns your best mate into some sort of love-sick loser."

But James didn't think the diary had been trouble at all. From now on, that diary was going to be his new best friend, and maybe for Christmas he'd buy Lily a new one…

_**OOO**_

_The End!_

_Tear Tear... My baby story is all grown up and finished! Thank you all for reading!_

_Until next time..._

_--HeyLookTheSnitch_


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